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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



DOWN NORTH ON 
THE LABRADOR 



BOOKS BY 

WILFRED T. GRENFELL 
Down North on The Labrador 

Illustrated, i2mo, cloth , . . , net 1.00 



Down to the Sea 

Illustrated, i2mo, cloth 



net 1.00 



The Harvest of the Sea 

A Tale of Both Sides of the Atlantic. 
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CRUISING DOWN NORTH ON THli; LABRADOR 



Down North on 
The Labrador 



By 
Wilfred T. Grenfell 

M.D., C.M.G. 



ILLUSTRATED 




New Tork Chicago Toronto 
Fleming H. Rev ell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



Copyright, 1 9 " . by ^ 5? ' 



New York: isS Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 123 North Wabash Ave. 
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: loo Princes Street 



©CI.A30ur,37 



CONTENTS 



I. 
II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VL 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 



THE SILVER FOX . 

THE REGENERATION OF JOHN 
NIE ELWORTH 

HOW JIMMY HAMPTON MADE 
GOOD .... 



A VENTURE IN ECONOMICS 

GIVEN TO HOSPITALITY . 

REMEDY FOR WORRY . 

ON HIS BEAM ENDS . 

A PARTIAL CONVERSION . 

THE SOURCES OF PLEASURE 

SUZANNE .... 

"BRIN" 

RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 

"THE SPARS OF THE ROSE OF 
TORRIDGE" . 



24 

39 
53 
68 

83 

94 
109 
121 
130 

H7 

172 

206 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Cruising Down North on the Labrador . Opposite Title 

" It tvas a Fox, Truly — a Silver Fox ! " . . 21 
" The First Silver that had Ever Fallen to His 
Share ! " 

" Patrols that Weary, Long Coast in Winter '* . 39 
The Same Coast in Summer 

The Last of a Labrador Berg . . . -53 

A Fishing Schooner in the Spring Ice . . .61 

" It was a Late Spring Next Year on the Coast " 

" I'm Seventy-three Come Michaelmas " . . 81 

*' There were Few Hearts Anywhere Lighter 

than Ours "...... 96 

Improving the Time in Fair Weather on Board the 

Strathcona . . . . . .121 

*' A Team of Husky Dogs " . . . .148 

" He Went by the Name of Brin " . . -155 

Sealing: The Harvest of the Winter Sea . .172 

" Our Hospital Steamer had Just Dropped Her 

Anchor" 207 



U' 



I 

T'he Silver Fox 

r^ ^HE capture of a fox would not be 
considered a matter of extreme im- 



1 



portance in most countries, but in 
Labrador it may be and has been more than 
once the event of a lifetime. If the fox is red, 
or white, or blue, or cross, or patch, even in 
Labrador it means little enough, but if it is a 
silver, and especially if it be black beyond 
the shoulders, then it looms very large on the 
horizon of a northern settler's economy. 

And Anthony Dyson had really caught 
one. Yes, there it was. He had just taken it 
out of his "nonny" bag, and it lay on the 
floor of his humble home, a mass of frozen 
hair and ice. A solid ball like a real Christ- 
mas cake, only with dark black hairs protrud- 
ing through the frosting. For the ice must 
be thawed off carefully, not to injure the 
beautiful long hairs. The veriest tenderfoot 
would not try to knock it off with a toma- 
hawk, as from a common skin. 

Early in November, before the ** runs " be- 
tween the outer islands were quite caught 
9 



lo DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

fast, long after the fleets of fishing schooners 
had winged their way south, Anthony and 
his man Chesley had worked their little boat 
through the slob ice to a large island lying 
off in the Atlantic, in order to tail their traps 
and prospect for chances of winter game. 
They had carried with them, as they always 
did in the boat, their sleeping bags and some 
food, in case they were benighted. For they 
were careful men, having little ones at home 
depending on them. 

It was, however, this very fact which now 
betrayed them. The northern sky loomed 
very angry when they left, and in their little 
sailing skiff they had shipped enough water 
to wet their clothing well before they landed 
on Sandy Point. It seemed too hard to turn 
back now ; so, hoping against better judg- 
ment that the weather would get no worse, 
they hauled their boat above high water line, 
while they went around the big, long island 
tailing their traps. They had calculated on 
having plenty of time to recross the arm of 
the sea before dark. But, alas I even before 
they got back to their boat the sky broke, and 
a hurricane of wind leaped down upon them, 
so that the water was in an instant a mass of 
smoke and drift. The intense cold froze 
their already wet clothing. They tried 



The SILVER FOX II 

to keep moving, searching the island for 
shelter from the storm, but finding none. 
The snow on the ground, which they de- 
pended on in winter for a night's lodging 
when travelling, was not deep enough to be 
any material help, and was wet and soggy 
from the driving salt spray. Capsizing their 
boat, they crept in beneath it into their sleep- 
ing bags. But these, too, were wet with the 
spray and as soon as they lay down their 
own clothes froze solid, so that they were 
obliged to get out and walk down near the 
breakers, so that the driving salt spray might 
soften their whilom armour, as vinegar would 
a crab's shell. 

It was too cold to eat, and though they had 
dry matches in bottles, like the careful hunt- 
ers they were, the force of the wind made a fire 
utterly impossible. A hare they had killed 
that day was as hard as a piece of iron, and 
they were too cold and wretched to break it 
and eat it raw. 

All night they walked up and down and 
up and down in the dark. Returning one 
time to look for their boat, they found that 
the gale had piled the sea so high that she 
was actually rolling over in the surf, and 
with her their few remaining things were 
gone, including their axe and kettle. They 



12 DOWN NORTH ojt The LABRADOR 

could do nothing then to save them. Still, 
fortunately, the wind was on shore ; so that 
when daylight broke and the tide fell the 
boat was ten yards up the beach. Oars and 
contents were all gone, and she herself lay 
a miniature iceberg, with many inches of 
frozen spray making her almost unrecogniz- 
able. Painfully they dragged her beyond 
the reach of the sea ; for if she were lost, 
with her would go any chance of ever seeing 
their homes and loved ones again. Even if 
the women and children had endeavoured to 
come and look for them, it would have been 
impossible for them to launch the big trap 
boat in the absence of any men. And they 
knew well the men had all left for their 
winter homes long ago. All this long day 
the fierce storm continued to sweep over the 
devoted island, until every high pinnacle 
and every blade of vegetation was covered 
with snow or was thick with frozen glitter. 
Soon after the first streak of daylight they 
were able to find a niche in the rocks under 
the lea of the island where they could re- 
move their clothes and beat out the ice. 
But they found nothing to make a fire with, 
and had to be content again to put on their 
frozen apparel to thaw out against the heat 
of their bodies if possible. For food they 



The SILVER FOX 13 

could only nibble a piece of hard bread, the 
best friend of the poor man on his winter 
travels, for it is cheap and cannot freeze and 
become useless. 

By dark that night Chesley, the younger 
of the two men, was fast showing signs of 
failing, and it took all Anthony's spare 
energy to rouse and hearten him. Unfortu- 
nately the lad had been reared as one of a 
large family, and in his boyhood had never 
really been able to obtain the nourishing 
food a growing boy requires. While escap- 
ing the fate of two of his brothers, who had 
for this reason fallen victims to consumption, 
he had nevertheless grown up with a dimin- 
ished vitality, and the few months of better 
living in Anthony's house had not yet 
brought to him the vital energy he should 
have had. 

The next was indeed a horrible night for 
both of the men, and doubly so because of 
what they knew it meant to those in the 
cottage across the strip of water. Anthony 
declares that with him the night went 
quickly, and he remembers little personal 
suffering. The need to keep his companion 
on the move and to stimulate him not 
to give up, lie down and die, apparently 
diverted his attention from himself. But he 



14 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

admits that every now and again his spirit 
travelled over those foaming billows, and 
just as really as if his body had been able to 
conquer material circumstances, he seemed 
to be watching his loved ones in his own 
home. So real was the impression that he 
seemed almost puzzled as to where he 
actually was, and he positively expected at 
times that his next footstep would land him 
at his own door. 

He was perfectly conscious of his young 
wife in her agony of doubt, wrestling with 
God, rather than " saying her prayers," that 
his own life might be spared. He had been 
himself too self-opinionated to ask for divine 
help against a physical storm, even all 
through that long night. Without actually 
confessing it to himself, he had been domi- 
nated by a resentment in his own mind 
against any idea that he was not master 
of his life and his environment. But the 
vision of his stricken wife seemed to soften 
his heart, and now, without any particular 
consciousness of humbling himself, he cried 
for mercy to God ; first for the almost help- 
less man he was trying to save, and then — 
yes, then, odd as it would have seemed to 
him at any other time — without any feeling 
of meanness he asked God to save him. He 



The SILVER FOX 15 

thinks now, had it not been for the trust of 
his companion's Hfe, he might never have 
learned the lesson of that night — a lesson he 
firmly believes that storm was sent for, and 
for which he has lived to heartily thank a 
Father of love in heaven for teaching him. 
He still puts it in the half fatalistic way of 
the country, " I s'pose my time had not yet 
come, doctor." But the sense of a personal 
God really watching over the affairs of men 
had begun to make a new man of him. 

In the dark hours before dawn there was a 
sudden lull in the wind, the sea dropped 
quickly, and before the splendid sunrise broke 
over the exquisite tracery of the hills the hur- 
ricane had gone as suddenly as it came. 
After chafing the limbs and rubbing the 
body of his charge until he saw signs of 
returning life, Anthony carried and drove 
him back to the boat, where he laid him 
down in his own oil coat until he could beat 
the ice off the boat's sides and bottom, and 
once more make her manageable. 

Hidden under bulks of seaweed and other 
debris he was able to find, alongshore, pieces 
of two of the now dilapidated paddles, suf- 
ficiently large for a man of his calibre to 
venture the passage home with. By a great 
effort he succeeded in effecting a launch, 



i6 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

getting his companion into the boat. After 
a weary journey he reached his own shore, 
where he had long been spied by his anxious 
wife from the lookout. It had been such an 
experience as he never wanted to renew ; but 
he now confessed that, taken with other of 
life's happenings, it had been honestly worth 
while. 

A week had gone by. Both men were so 
thoroughly recovered that one would have 
supposed they had forgotten their hard 
experience. It was now once more time to 
cross the run and examine the traps they 
had tailed on the island ; and as good signs 
of foxes had been apparent where they had 
set, Anthony, nothing loth, proposed another 
journey to Sandy Point. 

They were all in need enough, God knows, 
of some reinforcements to the larder. But if 
this were true for Anthony it was ten times 
more true for his companion. Chesley's fam- 
ily at home was a large one, and his father's 
credit at the store, thirty miles away, had 
" not reached beyond dry flour," so that 
while he himself was getting butter and 
molasses, he was anxious enough to be able 
to carry something home to his parents and 
the family. This was his first " winter out"; 
and, full of high hopes, he had begun work. 



The SILVER FOX 17 

determined to play the man in the eyes of 
those loved ones who were in such dire 
need. 

The events of the last round of his traps 
had had the effect on Anthony of making 
him absolutely certain of a watchful care 
over his life. But, strange to say, exactly 
the same circumstance had so preyed on 
the mind of the younger man that he flatly 
refused again to venture the journey. The 
more Anthony insisted the more determined 
was the refusal — and the day ended with 
Chesley's abruptly leaving the house alto- 
gether, after resigning all interest in the 
traps, travelling on foot to the mainland 
which he was now able to reach on the ice, 
and doggedly holding on his way until he 
arrived penniless at his father's door. 

Anthony felt he had nothing to blame him- 
self for. He had reasoned and ordered, all to 
no purpose. The outcome was that now he 
was left alone, to all appearances unable to 
pursue his only method of earning a liveli- 
hood. His wife had not yet found out the 
true state of affairs. She supposed that 
Chesley would return in the morning, and 
that at least her husband would not have to 
add to his inevitable risks the perils of going 
these long distances alone. Anthony re- 



i8 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

membered that she knew how her own uncle 
had come by his death two years before, by 
some fit or seizure while away with his 
dogs ; the gruesome story of how the dogs 
had returned some time later without him, 
and that only when the snow had gone in 
the spring his half eaten body had been 
found, was not likely to be forgotten. 
Anthony did not dare suggest to her what 
he knew was now the only course open to 
him. 

All the next day he himself still kept 
silence, hoping against hope that Chesley 
might return. He dreaded asking his wife 
to let him depart alone, though he had, like 
most of our men, absolutely no fear about 
going. But on the second day the real truth 
dawned upon him. He would be alone for 
the winter now, and must either go by him- 
self or starve. 

Screwing his courage to its utmost limit, 
he at length told his wife ; expecting that a 
scene would follow that would make his 
determination impossible to put into prac- 
tice. He confesses that in this dilemma he 
had forgotten again the good hand of his 
God upon him. For it took him utterly by 
surprise when his wife seemed to welcome 
his decision. Indeed, she had already begun 



The SILVER FOX 19 

to pack up his outfit and put his things to- 
gether, almost before he had done explain- 
ing his reasons. 

He had now, he confesses, yet another 
lesson to learn ; and that lesson, too, will 
stand him in good stead yet, I'm sure. His 
brave young wife had read him like an open 
book. She had solved his unspoken riddle, 
and — showing a courage to my view far 
superior to his own — with a smile on her 
face but an awful load at her heart she bade 
him do as he judged best. He had hardly 
learned what trust in God meant to him ; 
he now realized what the same trust could 
do for another. 

As he left the land in the old punt, how- 
ever, he knew that it waig a heavy heart he 
left behind him ; and he did not fail to feel 
that a pair of anxious eyes were watching 
him from the eyrie as once again he skill- 
fully sought to drive his little craft between 
the large " growler " forms of ice that swept 
endlessly through the tickle. So much had 
this feeling told on him that, when he even- 
tually landed and hauled his punt up over the 
ice barricades which had piled up on Sandy 
Point in the few days since he was last there, 
he had ceased to expect anything worth 
while in the traps. The whole world seemed 



20 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

somehow cruel and relentless ; and as he 
wended his way alone to trap after trap 
along the desolate sides of that bleak island 
and found one after another empty, once 
again life seemed to him to be a blank. His 
apathy was, however, half dispelled when he 
came to the seventh station. His trap, set 
here on the top of a heavy stump — driven 
into the ground to prevent its being iced 
over — had disappeared. The chain had ap- 
parently snapped near the peg and whatever 
had been in it had gone away also ; while 
the driven snow that had fallen the previous 
nights had obliterated all trace of the direc- 
tion in which the quarry had carried it. 
Carefully he blew away the surface of the 
snow, as in ever-widening circles he eagerly 
scanned the ground for some faint trace that 
might supply to his keen eyes evidences as 
to which way to start in pursuit. But all to 
no purpose. The snow, packed as hard as 
adamant by the wind, had obliterated every- 
thing. Now thoroughly discouraged, he 
tramped along to the next and last post, 
about a mile and a quarter farther on. 

A tiny dark speck some hundred yards 
out of the path had not escaped his keen 
sight, but it had until that moment appeared 
like the hundred and one other snags and 




"IT WAS A FOX, TRULY-A SILVER FOX!" 




THE FIRST SILVER THAT HAD EVER FALLEN TO HIS 
SHARE!" 



The SILVER FOX 21 

stone tops that protruded through the snow 
on every side. Suddenly it seemed to move. 
At first he thought it must be his eyes 
deceiving him. But no ; it did move, as a 
reed shaken in the wind. In considerably 
less than a minute, his gun unslung and 
cocked, Anthony was standing, his eyes 
staring, his heart bounding, over a tuft of 
black hair protruding through the general 
level of the snow. 

It was a fox, truly — a silver fox ! The 
first silver that had ever fallen to his share I 
Poor beast, there was no need to shoot. 
Amid all the wild sense of triumph now 
coursing through every fibre of his body, he 
could not help feeling it had found the fate 
he and his friend had so recently and so 
narrowly escaped — with a trap on two of its 
feet it had frozen to death on the island. 

It was this valuable fox that now lay on 
the kitchen floor of the little kitchen. " It's 
mine, Bessie ! " he almost shouted. " Mine 
all mine, every hair of it ! And I've no 
shareman. What will Chesley say now for 
having run away and left me? It would 
have meant everything to those children — a 
diet for the whole winter." 

As he was speaking the ice was melting 
off the glossy skin. What a beauty it was 1 



22 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

No tracing of the long hairs, as there would 
have been in a spring-caught fox; no thin 
mane from hair falling off as it pushed 
through bushes ; no faded fur from a Febru- 
ary or March sun. No. It was a real large 
dog silver fox, in prime season — dark to the 
shoulders, mane like a lion, and a pure white 
mixed with the black, that told him it would 
fetch ^500 if it fetched a dollar. Five hun- 
dred dollars 1 A new sail for the schooner, a 
new mooring chain that she needed so badly, 
tinned milk, a new rifle, a proper boat for his 
cod trap, a fleet of new salmon nets, enough 
twine to put the old seal nets in order, 
visions of plenty of everything dear to the 
soul of a Labrador trapper and fisherman I 

But Chesley — what of Chesley and the 
family? Anthony had yet one lesson to 
learn. He had to learn what real faith in 
God means. It does not mean singing. It 
does not mean praying. " Not every one 
that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into His 
kingdom here on earth, or hereafter in 
heaven." Into that kingdom which is right- 
eousness, joy, and peace in believing, en- 
trance comes only of doing the will of our 
Father which is in heaven. 

" Dear Anthony," said a quiet voice by his 
side, as he stood silently thinking over his 



The SILVER FOX 23 

good fortune, ** it will be good to get a new 
sail. How lovely the little Daryl will sail, 
and she'll bring you back safely to me, and 
with the new mooring chain I shall have no 
fear when the wind blows, and you are away 
on the voyage to the Hudson Bay Post. 
But, Anthony dear, there is something which 
you will love better than that. Let's get the 
dogs harnessed up and start right away, and 
we will have the best part of all. You will, 
won't you? And we'll drive right over and 
tell Chesley that half the fox belongs to 
him." 

Without a word of argument Anthony 
went out and called the dogs. 

For to Anthony had come at last — as it 
must often come to many of us also, through 
humiliation and suffering, the lesson of 
Christmas that God would have all mankind 
learn. 



II 

The Regeneration of Johnnie Elworth 

JOHNNIE ELWORTH was as dear a 
little chap as ever brightened a home, 
but he was not calculated to inspire en- 
thusiasm in a teacher. He was only four 
years old, and only just in the glory of his 
first trousers. His parents, brought up on 
the coast, had had no chances for " getting 
learning," and Johnnie had a strong family 
trait that suggested at once, and confirmed 
in a very short time, that in spite of our 
best efforts his chances of outrunning his 
parents in that direction were far from rosy. 
His very limbs seemed to be always tied in 
inextricable knots, and every time the teacher 
unfolded him he succeeded in getting himself 
more tangled. 

He had a marvellous way of sitting with 
one hand in his opposite breast pocket, and 
the other in his wrong trouser one, and both 
so far in that it was almost impossible to get 
them — I had almost said him — out. With 
infinite patience our gentle schoolma'am 
would unwind Johnnie and straighten him 
24 



JOHNNIE ELWORTH 25 

out opposite his slate, fixing his pencil in his 
hand. But so soon as her attention was di- 
rected to the other side of the class Johnnie 
would, in less time than it takes to write, get 
" all snarled up again." What his limbs 
were, his brain seemed to be, and what his 
brain, so his will. He seemed to be naturally- 
fortified against acquiring any kind of learn- 
ing. 

We have emerged from the " putting-it-in- 
with-a-stick age," having found that course 
harmful, so Johnnie became apparently an 
insoluble problem. No doubt this needn't 
have been the case had the schoolma'am had 
a limited number of "Johnnies" to attend to, 
and less limited help to do it with. But our 
school was small only in the magnitude of 
its accommodation and paraphernalia for 
education that we had been able to collect 
within its walls. The scholars varied in 
nothing so much as their ages, and when an 
attempt was once made to add a night school 
to our labours we found it impossible to re- 
cord an average age — our eldest scholars 
having long lost any knowledge of the date 
of their embarkation on life's voyage. 

If age was the main point of difference in 
the scholars, the inability to make suitable 
provision against the inclemencies of our 



26 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

subarctic climate was their greatest point 
of similarity; a resemblance that keenly 
accentuated the divergence of ingenuity dis- 
played in overcoming this paramount diffi- 
culty. How many times the places of our 
most interesting scholars would be empty be- 
cause " Please, teacher, Tommie hasn't any 
boots to come in." I can still see our tiny 
Elsie trudging to school in a pair of boots, 
generously supplied from her own wardrobe 
by a somewhat large lady, whose sympathy 
was aroused on her chance visit to our village 
by the grief she saw caused by a deprivation 
apparently so easily remedied. 

Arrayed in these " seven leaguers," for a 
little while Elsie became a regular attendant 
once again, and her prospect of getting 
learning flourished. True, she had to make 
an earlier start than heretofore, and leave 
home long before the rest of the scholars if 
she was to navigate successfully such large 
craft on the journey to school, but that did 
not trouble her as much as not being able to 
"keep up" when the others were "seeing 
their schoolma'am home." Alas ! a worse 
casualty overtook her soon. As she was 
missing from her place in school two days in 
succession, the schoolma'am " looked her up," 
only to find that " mother thought them boots 



JOHNNIE ELWORTH 27 

fitted Carrie " (her older sister) better ; a fact 
that there was no contesting. 

The almost universal scarcity in the matter 
of wearing apparel fortunately made a false 
sense of modesty never any factor to be reck- 
oned with. No one remarked unkindly on 
Tommie Carlson when he appeared for the 
first time in his bread-bag trousers, though 
the virtues of its former contents were indel- 
ibly stamped up and down the legs. The 
old trouser leg transformed into a sweater or 
jumper for Jimmie MacKenzie, though its 
former function was very thinly disguised, 
attracted no particular attention ; nor did any 
one resent the appearance of Harry Gray 
when he succeeded in forcing a passage to 
school in the cast-off sea boots of his father, 
over the tops of which he could hardly see. 
In the mind of our little schoolma'am it only 
created a sense of admiration and gratitude 
that this dear little chap should set out on so 
arduous a venture just to get to school. No 
one else, however, was in the least surprised. 
For we all knew a little about the power of 
magnets. 

It was, alas ! often the same with food as 
with clothing. When proper nourishing 
food was not obtainable, it was neither advis- 
able nor possible to insist on the little ones 



28 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

coming for " book learning," and our pa- 
ternal government has not yet provided us 
with the means of supplying a meal at mid- 
day. 

In addition to all other disadvantages, 
there is the ingrained " cussedness " of hu- 
man nature ; the universal slowness of all of 
us to appreciate the true value of things, and 
the inability to discipline ourselves to that we 
don't really care for. Most fortunately, we 
had, per contra^ the personality of our school- 
ma'am ; which, as one of our apt neighbours 
once said, " Be just as good as molasses for 
flies." 

Still education progressed but slowly in 
the village, and our aspiration to be ahead of 
the rest of the country in mental evolution 
seemed improbable of realization. 

Christmas had come and gone, and even 
here " away down north," we were already 
discussing plans for the still distant season 
of open water. A flag raised one day on a 
high pole across the harbour heralded at 
breakfast that a dog mail had arrived that 
morning — and as we gathered round the log 
fire at night, each one was contributing for 
the general benefit titbits from the news re- 
ceived from our widely distributed homes. 

It was our schoolma'am's turn to talk ; she 



JOHNNIE ELWORTH 29 

evidently had something on her mind. She 
was a poor dissembler of emotions. "A 
friend of mine who teaches a large kinder- 
garten near home," she broke in, " has offered 
to come down for the summer, and help with 
the school. Do you think it would be any 
good telling her to come along ? " 

In a country like this, conundrums are our 
daily portion. But it was unusually unani- 
mously, as if by instinct, that all hands 
plumped for a kindergarten, to be taught by 
a friend of our friend. After which, like so 
many children, we proceeded to discuss its 
possibility. 

^^ Experimentu7n fiat''^ was the best verdict 
we could come to, even after prolonged dis- 
cussion ; and sure enough our first July boat 
deposited a trained kindergartner in our 
midst, with mysterious boxes of apparatus 
such as the sun had never shone on in our 
village before. 

The question of installation was settled by 
clearing the diminutive schoolroom of all the 
impedimenta of rough board, forms and desks, 
that we had so laboriously collected and had 
previously been so highly prized. They 
were replaced by a few chalk lines on the 
floor, now resplendent from much soap and 
scrubbing. Some dainty little chairs occu- 



30 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

pied but little space, while in the corner stood 
the marvel of the. shore — a real grand piano. 
It was no bantling, this piano — on the con- 
trary, it had an added sanctity of years suffi- 
cient alone to commend it to our veneration. 

Its size was appalling in its setting of our 
tiny school, while from the very first day the 
gorgeous polish of its mahogany case did for 
the ill-lit corners of the room what it has since 
been doing steadily for the far less penetrable 
corners of many small minds. It has been a 
veritable light to them that sit in darkness. 
How many of our little scholars stood open- 
mouthed and speechless, as, after bounding 
through the door with characteristic energy, 
its awful presence first dawned on their startled 
gaze. When at length they saw their beloved 
schoolma'am actually sit down and handle it 
with familiarity and force it to give forth 
sweet music, enthusiasm knew no bounds. 

The grand piano had only one rival for 
many days, and that rival also had but just 
been unveiled. It was a large " stuff " cow, 
that not only was as real as life, but the wise 
ones knew that if you "slewed her head 
round " she would twist it back herself and 
give vent to a loud moo-oo as she did so. 
It was long the ample reward of the industri- 
ous to be permitted to slew that head. 



JOHNNIE ELWORTH 31 

And so the kindergarten got under way 
and our new helper could be seen surrounded 
morning and afternoon with an eager crowd 
of hitherto unappreciative youngsters, who 
in increasing numbers flocked to enjoy the 
marvels of modern kindergarten methods. 

The hearts of all those who were interested 
in the children's welfare rose like sky rockets, 
and the gleam in many eyes betrayed that 
we were counting once again on leaving our 
southern, usually more favoured rivals, " hull 
down " on the race for learning. 

It was a week after operations commenced 
before I managed to get down to a *' recita- 
tion " at the kindergarten. When I entered, 
the children were sitting in a ring on the floor 
and singing, while one of their number, from 
the teacher's feet, took shots at a long line of 
coloured balls, while the others counted the 
numbers hit and the numbers left in line, 
clapping boisterously as each new hit was 
made. The vigour of the thrower and the 
evident pleasure he got from the game at- 
tracted my attention. His whole energies 
were absorbed in the task. To my astonished 
gaze, the profile of this wide-awake, keen, 
eager little player slowly resolved itself into 
the familiar features of Johnnie Elworth. I 
could scarcely believe it wasn't an illusion. 



32 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

The humour of the position, however, was 
what perhaps most struck me, for, quite ofiF 
his guard and unaware of the fact, here was 
Johnnie at last, in spite of himself, obviously 
" getting learning." 

When Johnnie himself as successfully 
counted backwards the balls he was to aim 
at, my facetious colleague suggested that 
our little schoolma'am at the piano must 
surely be in danger of nervous prostration. 

Things went along swimmingly with the 
kindergarten ; rumours that a weird desire 
to acquire wisdom had developed like measles 
in all the children reached us daily, at hos- 
pital. Had we known the sad story of the 
Pied Piper of Hamlin we might have had 
reason to be jealous of this success, and we 
might have been pardoned for listening to 
the disquieting rumours that began to creep 
along the harbour. These, however, came 
from a different cause altogether. Our people 
have a very well defined though sometimes 
a singular idea of what Almighty God allows 
and does not allow. They are people who 
stand for fixed principles, and the cost to 
them and the sacrifice involved don't count 
one iota witn those who claim to be Chris- 
tian men — a trait which has many things to 
commend it. 



JOHNNIE ELWORTH 33 

Among the pursuits that have received the 
irrevocable condemnation of the local leaders 
of religion, in spite of the concession of Solo- 
mon on this particular point, is dancing. It 
comes within the same category as dram- 
drinking, and must be unhesitatingly dis- 
countenanced. The laxity of foreigners on 
this particular article of the creed is proverbial. 
No wonder then that rumours were soon 
afloat that at the afternoon session of our 
kindergarten the " thin edge of this wedge of 
sin " was being secretly inserted. Now if this 
scandal were permitted to spread it spelled 
nothing short of ruin for our most promising 
effort. It was obvious that this bull had to 
be taken by the horns, and that at once. 
There were two ministers who were our 
oracles on all such subjects at the time, in 
our harbour. I left in search of them without 
delay. It was agreed we should unexpectedly 
drop in at the very next afternoon session, 
and, if necessary, nip this poison plant while 
yet it was in the bud. 

Three o'clock saw us, strengthened by the 
company of yet one more expert on vital 
matters of this kind, knocking at the kinder- 
garten door. Our arrival, I must confess, 
seemed in no wise to disconcert the new 
teacher whose integrity was at stake. She 



34 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

certainly could not have realized the magni- 
tude of the issues this solemn conclave fore- 
boded. Politely but firmly we were ushered 
to the sole remaining wooden bench and told 
to perch ourselves well out of the way against 
the wall at the end of the room. Arrayed in 
a solemn row, and, there is no denying it, 
awed into silence by the atmosphere prevail- 
ing, we must have appeared to an intelligent 
onlooker like a tenderfoot jury at a new 
quarter sessions, I confess to misgivings of 
conscience as I sat watching without a word 
the " carryings on " we were shortly to pro- 
nounce on for good or evil. The first 
"game" or two were irreproachable. The 
interrupted ball game was reenacted. Every 
child was sitting on the floor. No adverse 
comment was possible on this or on the 
second game, called " Now we turn in, turn 
in," " Now we turn out, turn out." For for- 
tunately no one left the places allotted to 
them, though at the magic words " I turn 
myself about " every one jumped round 
about. This game was certainly permissible. 
But now the children are " choosing part- 
ners," and though, with the perversity of 
childhood, the boys had all chosen boys, and 
the girls girls to share the intricacies of the 
coming evolutions, I noted with trepidation 



JOHNNIE ELWORTH 35 

that the suspicions of the vigilance committee 
were undoubtedly aroused. I could see it in 
their eyes, and, being unaware of what was to 
follow, I felt proportionally nervous. We 
were informed by the teacher that this per- 
formance would be a " folk game," and was 
known under the title " Piggiewig and 
Piggiewee." It was to be accompanied by 
singing. 

There proved, to my intense relief, after 
all, no danger of our yet incurring theologic 
odium from this innovation on the road to 
the three R's. The children actually sat 
down part of the time, and the undoubted 
risks attaching to all forms of motor dissipa- 
tion were then confined to rhythmic move- 
ments of the fingers. With a sigh of relief, I 
recognized we were still surviving the test. 

Our teacher next successfully navigated us 
clear of any possible stricture through the 
game of " All on the Train for Boston." 
For, in spite of the motion, each player only 
held on to the shoulders of the one in front, 
and shuffled on after the engine along that 
apparently circuitous route. So that we 
could think of no form of dance (known to 
us in our unregenerate days of course) com- 
prehensive enough to include this, as even a 
collateral. But we had scarcely •begun to 



36 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

breathe freely when we were forewarned that 
the whole company would now "join hands, 
and move round and round in a circle " to 
music. This was a very different matter. 
And now the whole committee realized that 
the supreme moment had arrived ! With no 
little apprehension we saw boys and girls 
actually alternated, hands actually held in 
hand — and we noted that as all sang the un- 
deniably secular script of " Louby Loo," 
many of the tiny feet positively left the floor 
as the circle went merrily round. We had 
seen sufficient. For we had now no doubt 
whatever that we had traced to their lair the 
very natural suspicions that had necessitated 
our visit. Without question there were 
those who would classify this proceeding " as 
unbecoming to a wholly devoted religious 
person." 

With the most studied politeness we bade 
farewell to the prisoners at the bar, and ad- 
journed to consider the whole problem at 
issue— z>2 ccsmera — on the nearest fishing 
stage. 

The question now resolved itself into a 
very elementary one, viz., what should we 
do ? It was no longer the kindergarten that 
was on trial, it was the committee. We, we, 
the irreproachable — we who were regarded as 



JOHNNIE ELWORTH 37 

the patterns for the orthodox. It was we 
who were on trial. How were we to avoid 
becoming a stumbling-block to the feeble- 
kneed, and at the same time escape our own 
convictions that unregenerate scoffers might 
be justified in seeing a humorous side to our 
dilemma? I will not describe the vicissi- 
tudes of the session. There was nothing in 
Holy Writ to which " Piggiewig and Pig- 
giewee" was subversive, that was clear. 
Without any fear we decided that by no 
subtlety of construction could any known 
passage of even the most obscure portions of 
Scripture be construed into a ban on games 
restricted to the " Piggiewig " class. By a 
natural process which gave us great relief 
and we hoped was not " a falling back," we 
soon excluded also all but " Louby Loo " 
from the " questionable procedure group." 

An end has to come to all things. It was at 
length decided to put " Louby Loo " to vote. 
On division we pretended to be seriously sur- 
prised that we were unanimously in favour of 
non-interference. 

I may as well confess right here that the 
expression I had seen on Johnnie Elworth's 
face, combined with the fact that his bare 
legs had unwound themselves voluntarily for 
once, and had then dragged his diminutive 



38 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

partner off the floor in that game, combined 
with the undoubted discovery that he was 
actually singing, had seriously prejudiced my 
mind in the matter. I was forced to rely on 
the hope that my more theologically-minded 
brethren had escaped this bias. I cannot 
tarry here, for the benefit of posterity, to de- 
bate the reasons which impelled the minds of 
my colleagues to come to a conclusion so 
momentous in the annals of our interpretation 
of the divine will. It will be more far-reach- 
ing than most would suppose. The verdict, 
anyhow, was for the defense. The crowd in 
court alone remained to be dealt with. 

I have never suspected the cloth of any- 
thing but open and aboveboard methods of 
attaining their ends. I would be the last to 
suggest that any plan of action that com- 
mended itself to them should suggest the 
evil devices of the political arena. I protest 
that I hereby acquit my clerical friends of 
all suspicions of subtlety in the course we 
finally decided on. It was bold. It was wise. 
It was successful. 

The following Sunday even the " Louby 
Loo " group received from the pulpit the offi- 
cial sanction of the churches, and Johnnie 
Elworth is still on the high road to regenera- 
tion. 



Ill 

How 'Jimmy Hampton Made Good 

THERE was a feeling of dampness in 
the air, the first for several months. 
Still, it was only the second week in 
March, and rain is at that time an unexpected 
phenomenon away down north in Labrador 
The " winter doctor," the title by which the 
solitary man is known, who patrols that 
weary, long coast, giving help to the sick in 
winter, had long since turned his northern 
limit and was slowly working south towards 
his headquarters at the hospital, located on 
an island just where the Straits of Belle Isle 
flow into the Atlantic Ocean. 

His whole outfit, never a large one, con- 
sisted of two sledges, with ten dogs each. 
The chief pilot and dog-master, with a young 
companion, carried on the leading sledge the 
food supply for the dogs, and not a little for 
the men also. For the poverty of the scat- 
tered settlers, and the long distances that in- 
tervene between houses, and the liability to 
storms in which neither dogs nor men can 
move, make it imperative to haul at least 
forty-eight hours' food along with one. The 
39 



40 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

doctor, on the second sledge, carried the 
medical and surgical supplies and a comple- 
ment of sleeping bags, axe, rifle and snow- 
shoes. 

It happened this year he had for his com- 
panion only a lad of some sixteen years. The 
boy had been given the chance of this work 
to enable him to help out his parents, and a 
band of smaller brothers and sisters who were 
sorely in need of nearly everything that we 
are accustomed to consider necessities. The 
doctor had made the selection, though not 
without much misgiving. 

Jimmy's bright eyes and winsome face 
made his mute appeal to be given a first 
chance to earn something for home almost 
irresistible to a man with a soft heart like the 
doctor. Yet the power of endurance that 
even a trifling accident might at any time 
demand was a possibility that he could not 
overlook. The journey meant i,8oo miles' 
hard travelling ; often, when the going was 
bad, the dogs would be tired, and then all 
hands would have long distances to battle 
through deep snow on foot. Indeed it 
would often be necessary for the men to 
trudge ahead of the sledges for miles, beating 
a pathway with their snow-racquets for the 
toiling teams behind. Now they would be 



HOW JIMMY MADE GOOD 41 

half carrying sledges over hummocks of ice, 
now lowering them down steep hillsides that 
it had taken hours of still harder work to 
climb — and yet from which they derived no 
benefit. 

The home from which Jimmy came was 
among the humblest of the humble ; and one 
might add, without consciously stretching 
the truth, that it was among the nakedest 
of the naked. For the children to take their 
day clothes off when going to bed at night 
would be as sane a proceeding as to do that 
adrift on an ice pan. What is the good of 
taking off your day clothes when you have 
no night clothes to replace them ? The most 
skillfully made wood-fires in a small stove 
will burn out before morning, and Labrador 
climate in winter soon cools a house down to 
the freezing point. I had on one occasion 
given these children an excellent large 
blanket, but in twelve months all that was 
left of it was in the form of patches in 
their garments. For, as their philosophic 
mother remarked, if five boys all try to get 
under one blanket at once every night, it will 
wear out in time. 

The storeroom also was always so near 
the hunger line that, when, on one occasion, 
I had tempted the boys to taste some sweet- 



42 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

ened cocoa, they had been unable to drink 
it, not being accustomed to the taste of sugar 
Mother Hubbard's experience is common in 
Labrador. Alas, these last years often 
enough not only butter but molasses also 
had been a stranger to the household, and 
even a smaller bit of loaf came their way 
than their young and healthy appetites could 
easily have disposed of. 

It was, therefore, a boisterously happy day 
when the final decision was at last made 
known to them and Jimmy was promoted by 
the doctor to the rank of a wage earner. 

To make the arrangement feasible for the 
boy to be able to face the Arctic journey, he 
had to be newly fitted out from head to toe. 
When at length, in his snow-white kossak 
and knickers, trimmed with bright braid by 
the nurse, and his new leather boots and their 
gay tassels, Jimmy stood all ready for the 
start, he looked such an attractive little figure 
with his jet black hair, large dark eyes and 
olive skin, that the doctor felt somewhat rec- 
onciled to the risk he was taking in relying 
on so young a comrade for all that the long 
trip might have in store for them. 

Nothing extraordinary had happened while 
they had been journeying north. Indeed the 
new experience of having all the good food he 



HOW JIMMY MADE GOOD 43 

needed had told so favourably on Jimmy 
that when they reached their northern limit 
and began to face south once more, the 
doctor noted with enthusiasm a real improve- 
ment in his appearance, and was encouraged 
to trust some responsibility to him. 

They had been moving south now for some 
ten days, taking it more or less leisurely, as 
the winter showed no sign of breaking up 
and there were many calls for the doctor's 
services in the bays and inlets across which 
the line of their travel lay. For the most 
northern two hundred miles of the distance, 
they had hired new dogs, leaving their own 
somewhat played-out animals to recruit and 
rest with friends, who were fortunately well 
supplied with fresh seal meat for them. 
Their own faithful teams were thus in over- 
flowing spirits, when once more they were 
harnessed up ; and they needed no undue en- 
couragement when they knew that their own 
masters were with them, and that they them- 
selves were headed home. Onl)'^ those who 
have handled a pack of these huge Eskimo 
dogs, which are at their best and wildest in 
the coldest of winter, have any idea of the 
difficulties of controlling teams such as those 
of the picked dogs the doctor is compelled to 
collect for the exigencies of his work. 



44 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

As I have said, on this particular day the 
air was muggy and damp — an evil omen at 
night, if you have to travel far on snow next 
day ; and so it proved to be this time, for 
when they inspanned before daylight next 
morning, it was drizzling with rain, and a 
sticky, soft surface to the snow made travelling 
very difficult. 

Reports had reached the party of an early 
break-up further south, and all were at once 
anxious to make no unnecessary delays, for 
fear of rivers and estuaries breaking up be- 
tween them and their goal. The day's trail 
lay over a neck of land some fifty miles 
across, without human habitation, — an easy 
enough journey with picked dogs and in 
good weather ; one that could be accom- 
plished before lunch. As luck would have 
it, however, when by noon half the journey 
was over, some perfectly fresh caribou 
tracks crossed the path, and as meat was 
very short and the pilot considered he knew 
every inch of the country like a book, they 
decided to try to get a shot. The two teams 
were accordingly hitched up to tree stumps 
and Jimmy was told to "stand by" them, 
while the three men made a circuit to cut off 
the deer. Before starting they carefully 
warned the boy not to move from the place 



HOW JIMMY MADE GOOD 45 

till they should return. They would not be 
more than an hour gone, whether they got 
the deer or didn't. But at any cost he was 
to " stand by " where he was, so that there 
might be no fear of their missing him. 

The fresh slots of the deer got more invit- 
ing as the men pressed on, and every moment 
promising to bring them up with their quarry, 
they somehow permitted the rapidly chang- 
ing sky overhead to escape their notice, so 
that a sudden snow-squall took them prac- 
tically unawares. They had scattered some- 
what to get round their quarry, and it was a 
little while before they could get together. 
Since they left the sledges, much more time 
had elapsed than they expected, and it was 
agreed without wasting time in discussion 
they must retrace their footsteps without de- 
lay. Already, however, all marks on the 
snow had been obliterated, and they had to 
march in file, relying entirely on the guide's 
knowledge of the countryside. So confi- 
dent was he of his own ability that another 
precious hour was allowed to pass before the 
doctor realized there might be any doubt 
about the direction they were travelling. 

When at length, however, through the 
driving snow-storm which had now settled 
down upon them, they found they were fac- 



46 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

ing a hillside that they certainly had not 
crossed on their outward journey, the truth 
suddenly flashed upon them. A summons to 
the guide and close questioning showed that 
he had certainly lost his reckoning. 

There seemed nothing to be gained by 
talking, so it was agreed at once to keep 
within calling distance of each other, and tak- 
ing a spot of woods as centre, by circling in 
ever-enlarging circles and by shouting and 
firing, to see if perhaps they might get an 
answer from the boy. 

Though this sounds a fairly simple ar- 
rangement, it worked out as anything but 
easy, and when, after losing one another 
temporarily, and refinding one another and 
restarting the circles, they at length heard an 
answer to their shouting, no one could have 
been more surprised at the success of their 
efforts than themselves. Now, once more, 
they gathered together, and agreeing as to 
the direction whence the sounds came, started 
off by compass in that direction. Half an 
hour's hard walking brought them face to 
face once more with the very same hill rise that 
had first conveyed to them the information 
that they had lost their way. It was now 
getting dark, and the blizzard still continu- 
ing, they resolved to camp, though they had 



HOW JIMMY MADE GOOD 47 

neither food nor axe, and though they were 
wet through with the rain and snow. 

Fortunately the clump of trees they had 
used as a centre was, after somewhat of a 
search, refound, and a little protection pro- 
vided from the driving snow, while even such 
a fire as they could make without an axe was 
no little comfort. After alternate watches all 
night, it seemed rather hard to start in the 
morning without any food. The only possible 
substitute was obtained by emptying a two- 
ounce tin in which the pilot carried his 
tobacco. This was first boiled out, and then 
served full of boiled snow as a hot drink to 
each in turn. Somewhat wearily, steering by 
compass, as the weather was still thick, they 
started in a southeast direction, thinking that 
in that direction the dogs and sledges must 
be. 

On and on they toiled, hearing nothing 
and seeing nothing but the ceaseless falling 
snow. As evening once more drew near, the 
guide recognized that they were crossing a 
big river, and on this he knew there was a 
hut specially built for travellers and always 
stocked with some food against just such a 
dilemma. A new spirit revived within them 
when at length they struck the banks of the 
river. But now everything was deep in fresh 



48 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

snow ; only the tops of bushes protruded 
above the general level, and no possible in- 
dication could be obtained as to which way 
they should follow the stream to find the food 
and shelter they so much needed. A con- 
sultation was hurriedly held, and it was de- 
cided to follow to the eastward. 

It was a hard struggle following the wind- 
ings of the river bed, for the soft snow hid 
all irregularities, and more than once they 
nearly fell into crevices in the heaped up ice, 
or through " rattles " (rapids), where the boil- 
ing torrent never froze. But it seemed little 
to them, with the expectation of food and fire 
ahead. Mile after mile they pushed cheerily 
along till slowly again it began to dawn on 
them that they must have chosen the wrong 
direction, and that it was too late now to re- 
turn. They had travelled eastward all after- 
noon. They should have gone westward. 

The claims of hunger began now to be 
more insistent, for they had eaten nothing 
since the previous morning, so, halting in the 
brush by the riverside, and making the best 
night shelter they could, they kindled a fire, 
and filling a skin glove with snow, melted it, 
and then tried to broil the skin out of which 
the glove was made over the fire. It wasn't 
exactly an appetizing morsel, but it was 



HOW JIMMY MADE GOOD 49 

" something," and with hot water it served to 
slightly revive them. They supplemented 
their quota before night by pieces of green 
sealskin which they cut from the legs of their 
moccasins. 

The outlook the third morning was so dis- 
couraging they were driven to the decision 
that, to save their lives, they must now aban- 
don the hope of finding the sledges and go 
direct south over hill and dale till they should 
strike the north shore of Hamilton Inlet. 
They would then follow that, if their strength 
held out, till they should reach the houses of 
a tiny settlement called Tikoralak. What 
had become of Jimmy, they couldn't tell. 
They had warned him not to move away, 
and they knew that he realized what it might 
mean to them if he did go. But they realized 
also that he was only a lad, that he had 
twenty hungry Eskimo dogs to handle ; and 
that they might, if he interfered with them, 
at any moment turn on him and tear him to 
pieces. Probably, therefore, he had been un- 
able to remain all that time anyhow, while 
there could be no doubt that Jimmy knew if 
he climbed up on the komatik, the wonder- 
ful instinct of the dogs would certainly carry 
him to safety at the nearest settlement. 

It was clear to them all that they couldn't 



50 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

hope now to find him, so long as the weather 
remained thick, and that might be till all 
their strength was gone and it was too late. 
It seemed also probable that he must have 
moved on, whether he wished it or not, and 
after all, he was young^ — a mere boy — and 
they felt they could forgive him if he had 
given them up and tried to save himself. 
There was nothing to keep them now — sleep, 
as they were, was scarcely possible anyhow ; 
moreover they all recognized that, unless 
they soon reached help, they would probably 
never reach it at all. 

It was a somewhat desolate party that 
trailed south in those dark hours before day- 
light. Hour after hour went by, and it seemed 
as if the goal would never be reached. But the 
darkest hour is often just before dawn. Sud- 
denly, without any warning, the wind changed 
to the northwest just before daylight, and the 
snow-clouds disappeared like dew ; the sun 
rose in most exquisite glory, flooding the 
snowy mantles of the east with a deluge of 
crimson and gold, and revealing just before 
them the shore line of the fjord they were 
in search of. Far away, along its winding 
shore, a small column of smoke greeted their 
eyes. Even that was far better than they 
had expected, and reanimated by new cour- 



HOW JIMMY MADE GOOD 51 

age that the light and warmth gave them, 
stimulated by the knowledge now that help 
was close at hand, they put their best effort 
forth and were soon once more in safety. 

But Jimmy and the dogs — what had hap- 
pened to him ? There was no news to be 
had. A messenger was sent at once on to the 
next house and returned with a similar re- 
port. Jimmy must have surely gone back 
with his dogs to the place they had left last 
on the north side of the neck. 

Anyhow, a relief party must instantly be 
organized and despatched, the doctor's party 
being too exhausted to attempt to retrace 
their steps. Careful instructions were given 
the rescuers as to where the sledges had been 
last seen. Fortunately, as it was certain they 
had at that time been on the proper winter 
trail, it was entirely unnecessary to accom- 
pany the relief party to make it certain they 
should recognize the spot. 

There was much speculating as to what 
the result of the search would reveal, but no 
one suggested that the boy would still be 
where they had left him — that seemed im- 
possible. 

There is a kind of sixth sense among these 
trappers and lonely settlers, which seems de- 
veloped to supply the place of telegraph, 



52 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

telephone and rapid transit. They seem 
often to divine somehow what others are 
likely to be doing, or to be experiencing. 
But this time they were all doomed to be 
mistaken. Before they left, they had all de- 
cided that either the dogs had eaten Jimmy, 
or they had all gone back on their trail and 
safely lodged somewhere were just waiting 
events. That is just where they were all of 
them wrong. When they neared the spot in- 
dicated by the doctor, some black dots in the 
distance greeted their astonished gaze. No 
signs of death or destruction developed as 
they drew nearer. As in their excitement 
they covered the last mile at a stretch gallop, 
the scene before them assumed the very or- 
dinary proportions of two large dog teams 
harnessed to two loaded sledges, and a small 
boy patrolling quite quietly up and down be- 
tween them. A lump rose in some of their 
throats as they realized that little Jimmy 
Hampton was still " standing by." 



IV 

A Venture in Economics 

SAM CARREL'S house stood on the 
extreme end of the southern bank of 
Big River — a site selected as a com- 
promise between the fur path in winter and 
the fishing ground in the summer, out of 
both of which he made, or tried to make, a 
living. The isolation of the position was also 
a compromise, for when Sam, as a young 
man, had decided to settle on the coast, his 
choice of a suitable spot had wavered between 
a region where game might be expected to 
be more plentiful and one where his pro- 
spective family might enjoy some of the ad- 
vantages of social life. His mind was largely 
influenced by the experiences of his own 
youth. His father's had been a very large 
family, and he had never quite won out in 
competition with his neighbours in the New- 
foundland village. Indeed, it was that stern 
mother, necessity, that had forced Sam at the 
age of twenty-two to leave his own country 
with his young wife and to search for his land 
of promise in Labrador. 

The conundrum as to why any man should 
53 



54 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

have settled in such an utterly lonely place is, 
therefore, not so hard to solve as it might at 
first appear. That it was not necessarily an 
altogether mistaken conclusion he eventually 
arrived at before he started to build his house 
on the point, is testified to by the fact that for 
many years, till his family became unwieldy, 
he got along well enough. 

However, when baby number eight made 
his appearance while baby number one was 
still little better than a "toe biter," one eco- 
nomic feature peculiar to isolation began to 
make itself painfully felt. He still caught as 
much fish as any man, and did better with 
salmon, seals, and fur than most. But the 
lack of competition in the only market he 
knew how to reach told so heavily on the 
prices of his own produce, and the essentials 
of life for which he had to barter it, that the 
truth was gradually forced upon him that he 
could no longer provide his family with even 
bare necessities. His thrifty wife altered and 
patched the clothing as it descended from 
one to another of the family. But long be- 
fore it reached the last candidate even she 
herself could scarcely tell which patch the 
original garment had resembled. The house 
became barer and barer — the larder emptier 
and emptier — the family nakeder and nakeder. 



A VENTURE in ECONOMICS 55 

In cold weather the children had to huddle 
behind the stove for warmth, and eventually 
were unable to go outside, even in the day- 
time. The house itself had to be contracted 
to make it warmer. The nets, through age, 
were no longer reliable, for Sam could not 
afford "to reach to more twine." His chances 
for fur grew less and less, for his traps got lost 
and rusted out, and he was unable to replace 
them. It was even hard to find paint and 
nails and ropes for his fishing boat, or powder 
and shot and caps for his gun — moreover, 
that trusty but somewhat antiquated weapon 
was beginning to show signs of being as 
dangerous at the breach end as at the muzzle. 
" She would no longer carry a ball true "-— 
which lost the family more than one dinner. 

Such was the condition when first I knew 
Sam Carrel. He had sunk deep into poverty. 
His children were ignorant, half naked, and 
half nourished. Alas, his own physical con- 
dition was telling also on his enthusiasm for 
making the best of the situation, and dis- 
couraging his efforts. A hasty judgment 
might have called him a lazy fellow, his 
family dirty and unkempt, his house a miser- 
able shack — every single thing he owned in 
need of repairing. With such undeserved 
conclusions many men anyway dismiss their 



56 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

responsibility to their neighbours. It would 
have been quite wrong in this case, for I have 
come to know Sam well. It has been my 
privilege during the succeeding years to be 
able to render some slight services to my 
friend. Some of these were but sorrowful 
ones at best. One of his little lads I had 
carried away to our hospital, to die there of 
consumption induced by their poverty — to 
die without seeing his father and mother 
again. Once when Sam had secured a good 
fox I had been able to carry it to market 
myself and change it into flour, molasses, 
tea, and other necessities under circum- 
stances very favourable to Sam. His family 
were all away when on my return journey in 
my own little steamer I anchored once more 
off his house. The picture of the barrels and 
bales we landed on the beach and fortified 
with logs and stakes to fend off the attacks 
of the somewhat plentiful wolves while his 
supplies awaited his return, still rises vividly 
to my mind. 

So things continued till the competition of 
his own sons' families, which were settled 
around him, and one or two new arrivals, 
made it still harder to get ahead. 

It was late one fall, several years later, 
when it so happened we dropped anchor in 



A VENTURE in ECONOMICS 57 

a heavy breeze of wind under the lee of some 
islands near the mouth of Big Brook. We 
had somehow lost sight of Sam of late, and 
his fight for existence was more or less com- 
pletely out of mind. But before turning in 
for the night the bump of a boat alongside 
brought me on deck. My joy at recognizing 
my old friend was, however, greatly modified 
by the obvious impression the battle of life 
had left on him. I had no need to humiliate 
him by waiting for him to state in so many 
words that he was '* on his beams ends." I 
knew that fishery in the region had been 
very poor. ' 

" I may as well own it, doctor," he said 
when at last the comfort of the cabin had 
given him confidence to say anything, " we 
shall starve this winter if you can't do some- 
thing for us. The Southerners are gone, and 
owing to their bad fishery they left nothing 
here for the winter. And we couldn't get the 
credit of a barrel of flour against our winter's 
hunt. I know you've your hands full. But 
when I saw your smoke, and then you an- 
chored right off where we was staying, I 
thought I was meant to come off and tell 
you, and that's all there is to it," 

" How many of you are there now around 
here?" I asked. 



58 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

"We're six of us now in all, and then 
there's Jack and his two little ones and 
there's the two families on the point ; and 
then Tom up the bay and his crowd. There 
must be between forty and fifty, all told, 
doctor." 

"Let me see, how long will it be before 
you can get supplies again?" 

"Nigh eight months," was his answer. 
"You can't count on them Southerners 
getting through the ice till well into July, 
anyhow." 

" Humph ! That means a heap of pro- 
visions, doesn't it ? Let's reckon up how 
much it does mean. There's the seals will 
be in soon, and that will give you some fat. 
And you have the ducks passing along 
directly — we'll have to see the first to the 
powder being obtainable. Then you have 
got to have some clothing. You can't work 
a fur path in winter without some. Fortu- 
nately, I want some fire-wood cut down here 
somewhere and I shall be able to send you 
down some warm things I've collected to 
pay for it. That will be a start. But how 
shall we get the flour and the pork?" 

It proved to be an all-night sitting, and it 
was almost time to get our anchors up again 
and be off on our journey south before Sam and 



A VENTURE in ECONOMICS 59 

I had evolved a plan which would in any way- 
solve the problem without risking the pauper- 
ization of all concerned and reducing them to 
the position of dependence on the govern- 
ment or private charity. Matters were com- 
plicated by Sam's inability to compass the 
three R's — in which occult sciences, unfor- 
tunately, none of his offspring or neighbours 
could help him much. 

The first decision to which we could find no 
alternative was that for once I should become 
a patron of that which of all things I have 
fought against — the credit system, and should 
advance food and necessities against their 
prospective catches. How it should be done 
was the difficulty. How could goods be is- 
sued with any likelihood of being paid for, 
with so little to commence on, and with no 
one to keep accounts ? 

Fortunately, much of that which was lost 
owing to the absence of artificial advantages 
is often enough supplied by native wit to our 
Labrador friends. It was Sam himself who 
evolved the solution upon which at last we 
decided. All the goods were to be sent to his 
care, the exact price at which each article 
could be sold was to be absolutely fixed and 
marked up in plain Roman figures which his 
wife could decipher. Meanwhile he was to 



6o DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

find out the best prices offered on the coast 
that winter for each kind of marketable prod- 
uct he could accept in return, including all 
skins, such as otters, fox, ermine, martens ; 
also seal oil, sealskins, feathers, and indeed 
anything else that would be saleable. Against 
these he was to trade his goods. The prices 
marked included a small profit for himself. 
But as he himself expected a deficit almost as 
fully as experience taught me to, we neither 
of us counted that as a part of the project. 
Furthermore, he was to estimate how long 
each neighbour could last out before he sold 
any of his supplies. As the total supply 
would certainly be a minimum needed, he 
was to hold on to each article as long as pos- 
sible, that only the neediest should obtain it. 

Before winter finally set in I had a cheery 
word from him, written in what I might call 
" cipher " by his wife, saying the supplies 
had arrived and that he himself had had to 
begin on one of the new barrels of flour that 
very day. 

During the early winter, for the first time 
in Labrador, a mail courier crossed the Straits 
of Belle Isle on the ice. He had made an 
unsuccessful attempt with a tiny wood boat 
and one companion who, since they had 
nearly lost their lives in the first effort, re- 




A FISHING SCHOONER IN THE SPRING ICE 




IT WAS A LATE SPRING NEXT YEAR ON THE COAST' 



A VENTURE in ECONOMICS 6i 

fused to venture with him again. He then 
built a still smaller canoe of canvas, which he 
could carry when necessary by himself, and 
had safely crossed to the place where we 
were wintering on the south side of the 
Straits. 

Word had meantime reached us that there 
had been a rise in the prices of furs — more 
especially in those kinds I expected Sam 
would have secured. On his return the 
mail man took down letters informing the 
trappers of the good news and advising them 
not to sell their furs if they could afford to 
keep them. 

It was a late spring next year on the coast. 
Moreover, our vessel was itself delayed, and 
August was nearly gone before once again 
we saw Sam's fishing punt pulHng alongside. 
We had been speculating considerably as to 
how this particular experiment would turn 
out, for, judging by the history of Sam's past 
years there seemed no doubt that, now that 
it was necessary to settle up, we should be 
called on to meet a goodly deficit. There 
was one satisfaction, anyhow. Sam himself 
looked ten years younger as he climbed over 
the rail, and we all noticed he shook hands 
with a vigour that had not been his for some 
time past. 



62 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

" I think it's all right, doctor," were prac- 
tically his first words. To him the matter of 
meeting that debt was the biggest thing on 
earth. The transparency of his intense keen- 
ness to come out square was perfectly delight- 
ful. We had supposed, of course, that as all 
the fur buyers had come and gone long ago, 
he would of necessity have parted with his 
returns. He could so easily have done so, 
and with the money have purchased supplies 
for the summer from the new arrivals. Nor 
did it take any particular acumen to see he 
stood sorely in need of them. Most men 
would most certainly have done this, and 
would thereby have involved us, willy-nilly, 
in a venture against their summer catch, 
though they knew we would have to pay for 
their winter supplies at once. 

" It's all in a barrel headed up for you," he 
went on without waiting for any questions. 
" Won't you come ashore and see it ? I 
thought you'd likely get more than I could 
for it, so I just held on to it. It was a bit 
hard till the fish came along, but it's all right 
now." 

People differ as to what " all right " 
describes. I confess if the only flour barrel 
in my house that wasn't empty contained 
dry skins, I should alter it to "all wrong." 



A VENTURE in ECONOMICS 63 

But Sam and his family had learned in the 
school of adversity what it meant to " scrab- 
ble along," and the occasional pinch of 
hunger it entailed was honestly more than 
repaid him now when he knocked the head 
in and pulled the skins one by one out of the 
barrel. 

The wireless outfit on our ship enabled us 
to arrange a meeting with the Southern fur 
buyers, and thus we were able to sell the furs 
and visit Sam once more before winter. 

This time we were more eager than he to 
bear the news. With a sense of duty done 
he had busied himself with the fishing, and 
the excitement of the incident had subsided 
when he had handed over the barrel. This 
time our boat was out first and we were up at 
his cottage before he had pitched the fish out 
of his boat, fastened her up and reached his 
own doorway. 

" Well, Sam," I asked, " how do you think 
it turned out? Do I owe you a winter's 
diet again, or do you owe me your summer's 
fish ? " 

Sam said nothing. He just pulled off his 
old "sou'wester," his friend of many years, 
and stood scratching his head in " offish 
thought." At last he ventured, " I'm reck- 
oning, doctor, there ain't much between us. 



64 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

But so be there's a dollar coming my way, 
I'd say nothing against it." 

" The balance is down in your favour, Sam. 
Guess how much ? " 

"J've no idea, doctor, no more'n a child. 
But I wouldn't take no more than twenty 
dollars, anyhow." 

" Oh, yes you will. You'll take all there 
is. I've sent the money for the goods long 
ago." 

•' Square's square," he repeated two or 
three times. " Twenty dollars is more'n 
enough for what I done, but I'm that glad 
you'se is paid. I'd be more'n satisfied if 
there weren't none left over." 

*' Well, there's one hundred and thirty- 
seven dollars, Sam, and you'll just take 
every cent or I'll throw it overboard. Why, 
I can get you a new gun, a breech-loader 
with the gear, and a lot of new traps, and 
some twine for the old nets. And please 
God then there'll be something left over for 
a few things for the ' old lady.' " 

By a strange coincidence it proved this 
very day to be Sam's birthday. Our cook, 
who had gone ashore to forage for some 
fresh food supplies, had discovered his wife 
mixing a few spoonfuls of the ever-scarce 
molasses into the loaf she was baking, that 



A VENTURE in ECONOMICS 65 

the family might, in " lassie loaf," have the 
nearest approach to a birthday cake they 
could afford, wherewith to celebrate the 
occasion. This had given away the secret 
and the good fellow had called me out 
privately to know if he mightn't give them 
a little surprise from our galley. Incident- 
ally, also, we sent up a " drop o' kerosene " 
and a few candles, the lighting of which was 
to be the signal to us on board that the feast 
was beginning. 

Of course we walked in by accident and 
joined the fun, for we had looked up a few 
little things to serve as birthday gifts. The 
feast was a noble one. " Figgy duff," a big 
boiHng of family-mess pork, some crackers, 
a tin of condensed milk, a pot of real jam 
(not Labrador berries), and some apples. 
There were so many of us present we had to 
let the fire go out as well as keep the door 
and window open, and though every box 
and loose plank was requisitioned for seats, 
the old chopping block had to be brought in 
to help out. It was a most festive occasion, 
a real opportunity to "rejoice with those 
that do rejoice." 

Later in the evening, when we had seen 
that there was ammunition for every pipe 
and could as a consequence now scarcely see 



66 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

each other, I told Sam how an exactly 
similar experiment had failed that I had 
tried with another man at the same time 
who lived fifty miles further south. The 
cause had been that he had used the money 
obtained for his fur supply for a summer 
outfit, and had not been able to repay it. 

" I hardly know what to do, Sam. I 
really can't afford to do it again. When you 
find you can't trust a man once, you don't 
feel like helping him again, do you ? " 

"No, doctor, I can't say you does. But 
it isn't just as easy to hold out as some 
might think." 

" Yes, but I don't see how I can give him 
another chance." 

"That's what always seems so queer 
about the old Book, doctor. It seems we 
has such a lot of chances." 

I hardly knew what to say at first, so we 
relapsed into silence for a minute or two 
while we nursed our pipes. Suddenly Sam 
looked up, a gleam in his eye as if he had at 
least spied a good fur within reach of his 
gun. 

" I've got it, doctor ; suppose we lends him 
that hundred dollars." 

But I had learned a lesson that it would 
have cost many dollars to obtain in the 



A VENTURE in ECONOMICS 67 

schools — and I managed to get my anchors 
and leave Sam sufficiently pacified with the 
plan I outlined, to enable me to send him the 
whole hundred and thirty-seven dollars for 
his own use, if he ever does use anything 
solely for himself. 

So this was how Sam Carrel came by his 
new lease of life. His balance bought him 
the new outfit, for want of which he was 
gradually starving. He knew well enough 
how to value his acquisitions and to use 
them to the best of his ability — and so no 
one has ever ventured to say to us he didn't 
well deserve to have them. 



V 

Given to Hospitality 

OLD Uncle Malcolm of Dove Brook, 
Labrador, was a world citizen. For 
though born on the shores of New- 
foundland, he had ranged the seven seas in 
his youth in every kind of craft and in every 
kind of clime. But his *' time came," as they 
say on this coast, as everybody's else does. 
For after a harder trip than usual, reaching 
his native shore and tired of roaming, he had 
sought and won the hand of as true a partner 
as it was ever man's good fortune to fall in 
with. 

Fishing had been Uncle Malcolm's boy- 
hood occupation and that of his father and 
forefathers before him, so he had no diffi- 
culty in finding a calling that was at once 
congenial and would support him nearer 
home. It was all the pleasanter that that 
industry afforded a livelihood to the bulk of 
his neighbours also. 

The "shore fishery" as it was called, that 
is, the cod fishery in their own bays in New- 
foundland, was for some reason then just be- 
68 



GIVEN to HOSPITALITY 69 

ginning to fail, and the bolder souls were 
venturing further down north each year ; 
crossing the Straits of Belle Isle and cruising 
the rock-bound coast of Labrador in search 
of fish. Among these it was but natural to 
find Malcolm. When the fall commenced 
and ice beset the Labrador harbours, Uncle 
Malcolm's craft, which he had first partially- 
mortgaged on the strength of his savings as 
a sailor and had then paid off from his voy- 
ages of fish, used always to repair to the 
"bay" and "lie up" for the winter, waiting 
the new fitout for the succeeding year. On 
all his trips his good wife accompanied him, 
cooking for him on the schooner and helping 
him " put away " the fish, enjoying, as she 
used to tell me, " every bit of the voyage," 
for she too had the genius of the sea in her 
bones, an heirloom from many generations 
past. ''■■■ 

But as time went on little ones were given 
to Uncle Malcolm, and it became harder and 
harder to close the home for six months and 
carry the children among the dangers of the 
Labrador coast, more especially as every 
year the "snapper" fishermen were pushing 
further and further north, where the coast is 
not only unlighted and unmarked but also 
unsurveyed and uncharted. 



70 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

At last the question had to be settled, as 
with many others, should the wife and chil- 
dren stay home while " dad " took his vessel 
on her perilous journeys, or should they 
" find a place " on the Labrador coast itself 
where fish was plentiful, and selling the 
schooner should they abandon the long 
cruises and enjoy a home life, even if it in- 
volved the isolation of the then almost un- 
populated country ? 

To Uncle Malcolm moving was as second 
nature and a move of five hundred miles one 
way or the other with him did not count for 
much. But to the wife and bairns the break- 
ing up of the home and the leaving of her 
people were matters of great difficulty. For 
a long while she felt she could not leave the 
old folks. But eventually her love for her 
husband rang true. To be near him being 
her chief end in life, and loving the simple 
home ties more than ought else, she at last 
gave her consent and the whole family mi- 
grated, settling on the shores of a huge inlet. 

The new home was far enough in from the 
open sea to have trees enough for fire-wood 
and for protection, growing close alongside 
the house ; and was near enough to good 
trapping grounds to give Uncle Malcolm a 
chance of furring in winter, without his hav- 



GIVEN to HOSPITALITY 71 

ing to live practically the whole time away 
in tilts on the fur path. Yet the chosen spot 
was near enough to the open sea that in their 
small boat he and his boys could also work 
nets and lines for the abundant cod fishery in 
the fall, while from the point jutting out be- 
low the house and forming their little boat 
harbour, they could also tend salmon nets 
and so add yet another string to their bows 
for earning a living with. Excellent berries 
grew in extravagant plenty on the hillsides 
above the house and no one could preserve 
them better than Aunt Anne ; and along the 
land was enough grass to keep his goat all 
winter in hay. 

It might be supposed that with his long 
wanderings " before the mast " the sweetness 
and simplicity of Uncle Malcolm's character 
might have been much impaired. But this was 
far from being the case. The strong religious 
upbringing of his old home had been so real, 
so fine, and so exemplified in the lives of his 
own parents, that he had imbibed his Bible 
teachings to as good purpose as he had his 
mother's milk ; and that was to very consid- 
erable purpose, for Uncle Malcolm stood well 
over six feet and was far beyond the average 
in chest measurement. He stood as erect as 
a soldier, but when first I knew him, his hair 



72 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

and beard, both of which hung in wavy 
abundance around his honest weather-beaten 
face, were already gray-flecked. For twenty 
years he has been my friend now. And if I 
were asked to name a man who, in spite of a 
strong personality and no little " temper of 
his own " has always appeared to me to de- 
serve the title of a man, with the prefix of 
Christian before it, I should unhesitatingly 
say, '• You needn't go beyond Uncle Mal- 
colm." 

For many years things material went well 
with the family and under their hands grew 
up a fine house with a large, airy kitchen, 
which had twice to be enlarged, as the family 
grew and visitors and friends on pleasure 
cruises also grew more and more numerous. 
Aunt Anne's table was seldom, if ever, clear 
of refreshments. For no one may arrive at 
any time of the day or night without being 
pressed to "sit in" and " take a cup o' tea.'' 
I've known more folk " stopping off here 
over Sunday " as they passed along the kom- 
atik road in winter with their dogs than ever 
I saw in a house party at a country house 
ten times the size. " It was all very well 
them times," said a sententious neighbour, 
" but nothing could stand agin that of late 
years. When times began to get bad in the 



GIVEN to HOSPITALITY 73 

bay half the shore took to cruising, and them 
that brought up at Uncle Malcolm's fairly ate 
him out o' house and home." 

For things have changed both with the 
coast and with Uncle Malcolm since first I 
knew him, and it is that that caused me to 
write this story. To begin with, the Nemesis 
that overtook the Newfoundland shore fish- 
eries has pursued them also to Labrador and 
of late the fisheries have " been that uncertain" 
that a man " could no longer do as he'd wish 
to in providing hospitality for his neigh- 
bours," though, like Lot, these good folk were 
ever on the lookout for strangers. The years 
have dealt hardly also with Uncle Malcolm. 
One of his lads has left him for those shores 
where " bar'les " of flour and gallons of mo- 
lasses no longer are subjects of anxiety ; one, 
following the footsteps of his father, has gone 
to sea, joining the crew of an oversea brig- 
antine that carried fish to Spain and has not 
been heard of since. A third is in " the 
States," doing well, but his letters of late 
years have been only " scattered," and there 
is little likelihood of Malcolm ever seeing him 
again. His devoted wife has gone also be- 
fore him, and only his youngest boy, Anthony, 
is left. 

It would seem as if it would be no difficult 



74 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

matter for these two to provide for themselves 
all that was needed. I could not help notic- 
ing, however, as successive seasons brought 
us in the mission vessel once more to Uncle 
Malcolm's door, that the house looked barer 
each time ; and though a brave show of hos- 
pitality was still made to us all on our arrival, 
there was now no milk for our tea, and even 
the bit of sugar gave place to molasses. Still 
the home was kept scrupulously clean, though 
the bright, home-made rag mats gradually 
disappeared from the floors, and all the many 
little tokens of a woman's handiwork followed 
in their wake. The maid, whom he fed and 
clothed in return for doing *' his rough work," 
displayed a spirit worthy of her master in 
her use of the scrubbing brush, soap and 
water, and she had succeeded in inducing 
such a sense of utter nakedness in the great 
kitchen that unavoidably a sense of sadness 
filled one on entering it. 

The old man, with the grit that always 
characterized him, was silent on all personal 
matters, and appreciating the self-respect 
which held him from reposing his confidences 
in me, I came and went without broaching 
the subject of his ways and means. At last 
what he could not bring himself to say he 
put in writing — an acquirement he had to 



GIVEN to HOSPITALITY 75 

thank his early sailing days for — and I re- 
ceived a letter asking me to refer to these 
matters on my next visit. 

Uncle Malcolm had now passed the three- 
score and ten years allotted by the Psalmist 
as the years of our strength, and in spite of 
his erect figure, his clear eye, his steady hand, 
it was not difficult to see that in his case this 
span of years was probably approximately 
correct. The hard life had told on his vitality 
and he was no longer the man he had been. 

** It's this way, doctor," he exclaimed, when 
at last his door was shut and we found our- 
selves alone together. "The cupboard is 
bare at last. There has been hard times these 
three years. The neighbours get that numer- 
ous they have driven most of the fur away. 
I got ne'er a skin last winter, and how I'm 
going to get through this winter I can't tell. 
No, I owes no man anything, thank God, and 
what bit o' flour Anthony and the maid eats 
don't amount to anything. But you see how 
it is, doctor, it isn't ourselves we have to look 
for only. There isn't a family to the west- 
ward what isn't in debt to the company, nor 
to the eastward either, this side the big river, 
and when them's hungry in winter what's them 
to do ? They can't get no more credit. 
Lots o' them haven't got no credit now and 



76 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

more o' them has got children in plenty. 
What's them to do ? They can't go away 
wi'out a bite, when them is hungry and comes 
here. He wouldn't do that, would He ? 
And He wouldn't 'low His friends to either." 

There was no gainsaying the difficulty. 
There was no denying that the Christ would 
have fed them. In my own mind I couldn't 
help fearing I should have somehow avoided 
the issue ; possibly by moving off the komatik 
track each winter, as many I knew had al- 
ready done. I even ventured to suggest this. 
But Uncle Malcolm stood firm. 

" No, no, doctor, as long as God gives me 
a bit, I stay right here and share it with 'em. 
What I'm af eared of is it won't go round this 
time. Still if the Master fed thousands with 
a few fishes them times, I got that many any- 
how, and He can make it go round. It 
wouldn't be much trusting Him now after all 
these years if I just ran away up the bay wi' 
them fishes. It wasn't to complain, doctor, I 
wrote to you. I knows the Lord' 11 be true to 
His promises ; but we got to do our part, and 
I thought I'd like somehow to speak to you 
to see what you thinks." 

" Uncle Malcolm," I replied, " I'm delighted 
you did. I was just looking for some one to 
get me a few thousand billets of good dry 



GIVEN to HOSPITALITY 77 

wood put on some place like your point 
where the mission ship could easily call and 
get them. We're always short of coal away 
down here and I find I can pay enough to 
make it worth while. I reckon I'll help out 
by giving you flour for the winter, and you 
can place the billets right here where you can 
keep an eye on them." 

I was narrowly scrutinizing his face as I 
spoke, and I fancied I saw an even brighter 
sparkle in those honest gray eyes than usual, 
a sparkle that counts for more to some folk 
than that of any jeweled trinkets. A short 
silence ensued, and being a man of few words, 
he shook hands and went out. 

Two days ago we once more dropped our 
anchor off Uncle Malcolm's point. Two 
years had passed and each time the large 
quota of fire-wood has been faithfully pro- 
cured and ready for us, and now once again 
the same problem faced us. His failing 
strength made him realize that to haul logs, 
which got ever further from his door, and to 
cut billets enough to supply his needs had 
become impossible. 

" Fourteen barrels I used last winter, doc- 
tor," he began as he saw my eyes roaming 
about the great kitchen that outrivalled a 



78 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

Mother Hubbard's for bareness. Not a bone 
either of beef or of pork would the neediest of 
visitors have found ; no, nor a speck of dirt 
either ; the place was swept and garnished 
like a great skeleton. 

" Fourteen 1" I replied. " Four you mean. 
Four is more than enough for you and 
Anthony." 

" Every ounce o' fourteen," he said, " and 
but for what you bought for me in the south, 
every barrel at $8.50 a barrel." 

" Who ate them, Uncle Malcolm ? " 

" Well, we had as many as twenty-seven 
staying here one week end, and they with 
ne'er a bite or sup at home. Isn't us told to 
* be given to hospitality,' and that isn't feed- 
ing them as '11 pay us back, is it? " 

" It's you that is the real relieving officer 
down here," I answered. 

"Thank God," he replied, somewhat 
piqued, " I've not had to come to the gover'- 
ment yet for help, though we has been on 
dry flour all summer." 

" What, you are without any fats in the 
house for yourself ? Is that true ? " 

" Well, you see, doctor, they comes round 
first one and then another for ' just a bit to 
grease the pot,' till there's none left for our 
own pot. I thank God I doesn't have to take 



GIVEN to HOSPITALITY 79 

none till I catches what to pay for it with, but I 
haven't seen a bit o' butter this three months. 
There's a few salmon and fewer fish on the 
land yet, I know," he went on. 

" Isn't it better in here in the bay ? " I asked. 

" No, indeed. It'll be a poor lookout for 
winter. The best of them haven't a quintal 
under salt yet, and t' season be fast slipping 
away." 

" You'll simply have to shut your door to 
them this winter then, whatever happens now, 
Uncle Malcolm." 

He stood and looked at me and said 
simply : " I'll not last much longer anyhow, 
doctor, and please God it'll never come to 
that. I doesn't want to hear Him say, ' I 
was hungry and you did not feed Me, a 
stranger and you took Me not in.' " 

" Well, what can you do ? " 

" There be that thirty dollars what you'se 
sending me for the wood this year, and that'll 
do for all Anthony and I needs. Ther'd ha' 
been more o' that as there was other years, 
but I can't chop like I used to, doctor, and 
the folks what visits me doesn't seem to be 
able to go at it." 

"They ought to do the whole lot. But 
since they don't, however can you manage ? " 

For answer he had already gone to a large 



8o DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

time-worn seaman's chest and after carefully 
unlocking it, was feeling about among a mass 
of heterogeneous wraps and relics. At last 
he apparently found what he was hunting for, 
for closing the lid he came back to the table 
with what was evidently a schoolboy's an- 
cient pencil case. It required much persua- 
sion to open it, as it had obviously been lying 
some years untouched. When at last the 
feat was accomplished, with his jack-knife he 
picked out a packing of spun yarn that had 
been well " caulked " into it, and then holding 
it upside down a small roll of greenbacks fell 
out on the table. 

"If them as killed the fox that brought 
them notes had done with theirs as I done 
with mine," he began, " there would be less 
hunger in the bay this day. There's many 
in the bay, doctor, that's caught two to my 
one always. But there, they didn't know 
how to look after them when they had 'em." 

He picked up the notes and handed them 
to me. 

"There ought to be twelve o' them," he 
said ; " that makes sixty dollars. But I can't 
read 'em, so you count 'em." 

He was correct. The roll proved to con- 
sist of twelve old five-dollar bills. 

" What shall I do with them ? " I asked. 




"I'M SEVENTY-THREE COME MICHAELMAS' 



GIVEN to HOSPITALITY 8i 

" Do with them ? Why, won't you buy 
food for me with them ? " 

"What food do you want^ 

** Flour and molasses, and some butter, if 
it'll reach to it." 

" But you have flour enough already, and 
you needn't spend all this on butter and mo- 
lasses. Is this all that you have laid by for 
your old age?" 

" Yes, doctor, it's all I has laid up and I 
wants it all, every bit, in flour and butter 
and molasses ; that is," he corrected himself, 
" molasses and some butter. No, it isn't me 
that wants it, but I've got to have it, and 
that's all there is about it." 

"But, Malcolm, you are getting old and 
you shouldn't cut the last plank away yet." 

"I'm seventy-three come Michelmas," he 
said, " and I feel more'n that, since the old 
woman's took, and I'm thinking maybe I 
won't need any flour next winter." 

" But maybe you will be spared many 
winters yet, and if you spend all you have 
now, how will you take care of those years?" 

" He'll take care, doctor. I guess I'll trust 
Him. It wouldn't do not to have used that 
sixty dollars and have sent folks away hungry, 
would it, doctor ? It would look as I didn't 
have much trust in Him. Doesn't the Book 



82 DOWN NOR TH ojt The LABRADOR 

say, * I was hungry and ye gave Me nothing 
to eat ' ? " 

What could be said ? I mechanically took 
the sixty dollars and put them in my pocket 
and was silent. It certainly seemed to be 
the Master speaking. I had once imagined 
I knew what hospitality meant. 



VI 

Remedy for Worry 

CUT off by the frozen sea for the long 
winter months as a general rule, we 
enjoy the enforced simple life, and 
store up energy for the open season. But 
last year it had been a very wearing time 
with us at the hospital. 

It was not because our patients had not 
done well ; on the contrary, we had had more 
reason than enough to be satisfied with our 
results. 

Beyond letters of gratitude from those to 
whom still a modern surgical operation is a 
miracle, and who are also tender-hearted 
enough to express their feelings, each suc- 
cessive mail-steamer had brought us an in- 
creasing number of sufferers ever coming 
from longer distances, whom it was our en- 
larging privilege to help. 

The comparatively small fall of snow had 
made some of our longer journeys by dog- 
sledge physically exacting, which in our ex- 
perience is as a rule the best antidote for 
worry of mind. It had added, however, its 
quota to a strenuous time, and the tax on our 
83 



84 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

nervous energies had been a fact even if we 
had not recognized it. 

On the top of this there had been financial 
worries ; the doubling of the hospital had in- 
creased the running expenses greatly ; the 
enlargement of the orphanage meant a further 
increase in upkeep. 

We had discovered that the new school, 
simply essential if we were to be able to give 
the ** whole man " the uplift needed, could 
not be built for the money donated. 

My colleague looking after the new sailors' 
home had written that the contract was much 
larger than he had expected or could afford. 

The poor price for fish, with a very mod- 
erate fishery, had made it very hard times 
with some of our poor friends and neighbours 
along the shore. 

The " cooperative " or people's stores that 
we had started and been fostering were won- 
dering whether they could meet their lia- 
bilities. 

On account of lack of communication we 
were powerless to prevent some plans from 
being carried out that from experience, 
gained recently, we now knew would in- 
volve probably considerable loss and suf- 
fering. 

Everything seemed to come at once, and 



REMEDY for WORRY 85 

we were caged in and powerless to do any- 
thing to remedy things. 

The seat of the human emotions is a 
physical thing, and even to the optimist the 
world will look blue when nervous vitality is 
exhausted. 

Though it certainly goes hard with me to 
confess, it was in just such a mood that I was 
sitting watching our mission boat, which 
some friends had collected the money for, 
and which seemed only able to say to me, 
" Ought you to go to the expense of my up- 
keep, when there is more than enough work 
coming to you anyhow ? " 

Its beautiful lines and costly outfit rendered 
it a perfect handmaid to our work ; but to my 
distorted view, as I was worrying over the 
unkind comments of an enemy, who had been 
accusing a missionary of being self-indulgent, 
even his helpmate was out of joint. 

The ice had gone now ; but open water 
with all its undoubted blessings had brought 
us an incessant stream of poor folk coming 
for sympathy and help, and also an endless 
delayed correspondence and a complexity of 
problems that permitted little relief from 
nervous strain. 

Every man's lot seemed to be better than 
my own ; and, as the white-winged fleet 



86 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

flitted north in quest of its harvest of the sea, 
the cheering welcome of our many passing 
friends seemed only to emphasize my own 
troubles. 

My introspective mood was, however, ab- 
ruptly interrupted by a maid announcing, 
" There are some men to see you, doctor ; 
they seems in a terrible hurry." 

In the waiting-room I found six broad- 
chested, blue-jerseyed vikings, who had 
rowed over from their island home twenty 
miles away to the southward. 

With characteristic bluntness only a vise- 
like grip of the hand preceded the announce- 
ment of their business, which was that Paddy 
Dunster's wife had " borned her eighth baby 
ten days ago," but had ** got the fever," and 
was very near to dying. Would I go over 
at once ? 

Our mail-steamer only twenty-four hours 
previously had landed forty-nine sick folk at 
our door, and we had not only a large group 
of surgical operations ahead of us, but some 
few patients already fresh from the operating- 
room. 

Even while my colleague and I were de- 
bating the possibilities of going, another lot 
of men were reported by the maid, and they 
also were " terrible anxious." 



REMEDY for WORRY 87 

This time in the hallway I found almost a 
replica of the first group, and immediately 
recognized them as coming from about ten 
miles to the north. 

" Elisha Marston's woman is very sick and 
like to die. Her baby was borned two days 
ago, and there were no one to see to her. 
We wants you to come right along at once. 
Us '11 carry you back glad enough." 

It wasn't an easy matter to decide, but it 
was somewhat the stimulus I needed ; namely, 
the realization that there was a need for what 
one had to give. 

While I was still undecided as to what to 
do, my eye fell inadvertently on the mission- 
boat at the wharf. 

Oddly enough, it upbraided me no longer. 
Instead it said perfectly plainly, " Come at 
once, and I'll take care of you." What 
more was needed ? 

A few hours later, as happy as a cricket at 
the prospect of the trip, I was chasing the 
already departed trap-boat, which had dis- 
appeared at a pace that I have seen ex- 
hibited only in boats rowed by just these 
men, and by them only when they are bound 
on sick-calls. 

Meanwhile, my colleague, having satisfied 
himself that the condition of the "in" 



88 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

patients permitted it, left to answer the 
northward call, and, preferring shank's pony 
over the hills to the longer route by water, 
was toiling already through tuckermore and 
over bog, through brooks and over rocks 
and barrens, for no fee but a woman's life. 

As we drew towards the island, a second 
hurrying boat met us. The helmsman wav- 
ing his hands caused us to stop, when he 
boarded us with a letter from our poor 
patient's husband. 

It ran : 

^^ Dear Doctor: I knows you'se coming ; 
but Mary's no better, and it's five o'clock, 
and there's no signs of you. Do come 
along quick, doctor. I knows you will. 

"Patrick Dunster." 

Without a word except of greeting on land- 
ing I was hurried right into the sick-room. 

It needed no special insight to recognize 
the danger. The collapsed condition of my 
patient, and the flickering pulse, showed 
that if there was any hope of recovery at 
all, it lay in immediate action. 

It was already dark, and the house I had 
come to was very small. The other seven 
children were only too obviously at home, 
while the baby and its attendants occupied, 



REMEDY for WORRY 89 

to say the least, all the room that could be 
spared them. 

Cold is still supposed to be harmful by our 
people. Heat is man's friend. Therefore 
the windows were closed, and the stove was 
in full blast. 

I had served a long apprenticeship in 
these troubles, and have learned that a 
people accustomed to one ritual do not re- 
sent another, and also that a little trouble 
can transform even such an environment into 
a possible room for effective surgery. 

Without delay the transformation was ac- 
complished and the last chance given. 

Every time the door was open Pat's eager 
face asked, even before the words came, 
" How is it going with Mary ? " 

By ten o'clock all was quiet again, and 
every effort was being made to keep life in 
my patient till she should reap full benefit of 
the work. 

At midnight in spite of all precautions 
there were no signs of rallying ; the balance 
of the scales seemed to hang by a hair. 

One o'clock passed safely ; two struck ; 
and still there was hope. 

But it was now, alas ! only the hope of a 
David in the anguish that made him ex- 
claim, "Who can tell whether God will be 



90 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

gracious to me, that the child may hve?" 
The battle was going against us, and my 
tired brain seemed unable to afford any 
further suggestions. 

I tried to explain it to my poor friend, but 
the intuition of love had already revealed to 
him the probable outcome. 

While there was still hope, yet there was 
nothing further I could do. Other duties 
would be pressing on us with the returning 
day; so I gladly accepted the kindly sug- 
gestion that I should lie down to await events. 

It hardly seemed five minutes later when 
my opening eyes fell on the figure of Pat 
standing by the couch. 

Daylight was breaking, and the infinite 
loneliness and silent sorrow in his face made 
any questions unnecessary. He had come to 
tell me that I had lost. 

It was a perfect morning that was break- 
ing outside ; not a ripple could be seen on 
the placid waters of the Atlantic. Only now 
and again the flash of an oar or the bump- 
ing of a boat against a schooner's side broke 
the silence, and reminded us that the world 
must go on in spite of our sorrow. 

The lack of wind to carry us on our home- 
ward journey gave us time to linger, while 
the last sad offices that could be rendered to 



REMEDY for WORRY 91 

the poor wife and mother were willingly per- 
formed by kindly hands. 

It would be a time that in many homes 
would make any attempt at offering comfort 
seem an intrusion. But here in the face of the 
immediate sad outlook for this large family of 
small children an excuse was furnished us for 
not hastening away, and an opportunity was 
opened for assuring our old friend of so many 
years that he might count on us to stand by him, 
without appearing to trespass on his grief. 

Years ago his right hand had been shot to 
pieces by an explosion of his gun while the 
hand rested on the muzzle as he loaded the 
other barrel. It had been my privilege then 
to be able, after many weeks of constant 
attention, not only to save his life, but to 
patch up the fragments left sufficiently to 
enable him to nip a fishing-line while he 
hauled it in with the other hand, and thus 
follow his calling successfully. 

It had ever since been a very close bond 
of affection between us. It gave me a priv- 
ilege that with complete strangers in the 
hour of distress I should have hesitated to 
exercise ; so that, when at last we started 
homewards in the boat, we had the small 
comfort in the consciousness of our failure 
that we could still be of service. 



92 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

Moreover, we also had the welcome as- 
surance that confidence in our ability to 
serve had not been shaken ; for among the 
friends present was waiting a young mother 
with her only child, a babe of fifteen months, 
to accompany me back to the hospital for a 
dangerous operation on the brain. This has 
since been successfully performed. 

As I reached the hospital and began stor- 
ing away in their places the various ap- 
paratus that we had chosen to rely on for 
help in our unequal task, the nurse informed 
me that my colleague had just returned also, 
and was now seeking a well-earned rest up- 
stairs. Success had crowned his efforts ; 
and, as I peeped into his room, I could see 
he was enjoying the restful repose of the 
victor. 

To many it would seem that the personal 
unrest in which this call to service had found 
me must have been enhanced by this ad- 
ditional exaction. To my surprise it proved 
absolutely the reverse. A few hours later I 
awoke to realize the fact that I had enjoyed 
the most refreshing sleep for many months. 

The mission-boat was still at her old place 
at the wharf when I looked out of the win- 
dow. 

There was no upbraiding about her this 



REMEDY for WORRY 93 

time. She just said : " Capacity is worth 
paying for. Here I am waiting again." 

On the hill behind her stood the enlarged 
hospital, and the long row of patients sun- 
ning themselves on the veranda and up- 
stairs balcony seemed all to say, " We may 
have cost money, but we pay you in oppor- 
tunity and a full life." 

Further back stood the orphanage ; a batch 
of hatless, barelegged children as happy as 
sandhoppers were skipping around outside, 
waiting to accompany the schoolma'am to 
school. They seemed to say, " God will 
provide for us ; you have no right to worry." 

On the other side of the hilltop rose the 
spire of our little church. It had an odd 
message this morning, in which it seemed at 
first to be stultifying itself, for it said plainly 
so that I could not but understand : " I can- 
not give you peace. Not in creed or sect 
can you find it. Kindness is more Christlike 
than righteousness. His peace comes only 
to those travelling in His footsteps. The 
remedy for unrest is work." 

" 'Tis something, when the day draws to its close. 
To say, ' Though I have borne a burdened mind, 
Have tasted neither pleasure nor repose, 
Yet this remains : to all men, friends or foes, 
I have been kind.' " 

— Dawson, 



N 



VII 
On His Beam Ends 

T EW YEAR'S DAY had come and 
gone at our little winter hospital. 
•* The mildest winter this fifty year, 
doctor, anyways," the patriarch of the village 
declared it "Why, years ago us'd drive 
round heads many times 'fore Christmas, and 
now there's open water right to Uncle Adam's 
stage," he added in a somewhat querulous 
tone, as if that was a modern innovation not 
to be accepted without protest, that the open 
Atlantic beyond the steep clifTs that formed 
our harbour mouth should still be free of the 
Frost King's control. 

" It's only my second winter on the coast, 
Uncle 'Lige," I answered, " but I haven't 
noticed any heat to complain of. They 
wouldn't call this sultry where I came from, 
and so long as the heads keep the seas out of 
the harbour I can forgive the ocean, if it 
does love Jack Frost's rule as little as I do. 
I'm sure there's snow enough on the land to 
suit any one." 

"Well, well. It all helps to fill up the 
94 



On HIS BEAM ENDS 95 

holes, doctor. But you can't trust to cross 
the tickles yet, and it's too long to go round 
till we get a drop o' rain to give the snow a 
surface. It's this 'twixt and between that's 
no use. It's never no use anywhere." 

" Well, Uncle, I'll admit it keeps the hos- 
pital slack of work — people can't get to us 
any better than we can get to them. So I'm 
going to try a trip on Monday to the west 
coast with the dogs, and see how the folks 
are getting on. It's a long while since we got 
word from them, though I hear the first mail 
has come over to Lock's Cove across the 
county." 

" Yes, I know the trail's cut, and you're 
young still. Perhaps you may," he reiterated, 
" but don't take no risks, doctor. Don't take 
no risks." 

I thought of his parting words a good deal 
next day. For word came from the north 
that Jack Byrne had been drowned crossing 
a tidal arm of the sea with his dogs, as he left 
to get a load of fire-wood. The current, which 
had kept the ice from freezing strongly in the 
spot he happened to cross, swept him under 
when he fell through. His comrade had 
only been saved by the heroic action of his 
sister running out from the shore. She had 
flung herself down and crawled to where he 



96 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

was clinging to the ice edge, tangled up in 
the traces of the dogs. She held on to him 
till help came in the form of a flat-bottom 
boat hauled over the ice. 

There are few sensations more delightful 
on a clear brisk morning than the prospect of 
a fifty-mile journey over hill and vale, with 
the glorious evergreen trees and the perfect 
whiteness of the snow. It is a sight not easy 
to forget. It is not lessened by the almost 
crazy delight of a well-fed team of dogs 
turned out for their first long journey. On 
this occasion a good driver had fairly covered 
the harness with bright woollen bobbins. Our 
gaily decked snow racquets adorned the net- 
ting on the raised sledge back, and the fa- 
miliar long box with the big red cross was 
firmly lashed amidships. Kettle and axe, 
rifle and instrument cases, all were there, and 
as soon as I had bade good-bye to our friends 
assembled to see us off, I cut the back strap 
which, tied to the starting post, alone pre- 
vented our team from running away from us 
too soon. There were few hearts anywhere 
lighter than ours, though we were cut ofif 
from many of the most " modern blessings " 
of civilization. 

It was just two weeks before once again 
our dogs brought up at the hospital doors. 



On HIS BEAM ENDS 97 

We had only covered some three hundred 
miles on the trip, having visited a great 
number of scattered hamlets and villages. 
But we arrived home with a good conscience. 
For food for our dogs had everywhere been 
plentiful and they got back as fresh and as 
sturdy as they started. We had left very lit- 
tle sickness behind us on the coast, and ex- 
pected a rest for quite a while among our 
own people. 

But the unexpected always happens. That 
very night we were called out of bed by a 
loud knocking at the hospital door. The 
voices of men and the sound of dogs on the 
crisp snow greeted our half-wakened senses. 
" Who's there ? " from the window brought in 
stentorian tones the information, "It's me — 
Jonas — we've come over from Stark's Cove. 
Jennie Gardner broke her arm yesterday, so 
them says." 

" All right, I'll be down directly. Go and 
call Ben out to give your dogs a feed." 

Our visitors, like most of their kind, are 
not men to rest easily, when trouble of which 
they don't know the extent is hanging over 
them, and it was all we could do to persuade 
them that a few hours' rest before we started 
would not injure the prospects of an ordinary 
broken arm. It would have been no use ex- 



98 DOWN NORTH oji The LABRADOR 

pecting them to take anything but their outer 
clothes off. A rug and enough room on a 
hard wood settee to lie on was all they would 
accept, and no sooner had they finished a 
huge draught of hot tea and some supper 
than their two great forms lay stretched out 
near the stove, as motionless almost as if 
they had been corpses. 

As the messengers were from the coast we 
had not visited, and brought us no news of 
any further trouble, and since haste seemed 
the object most to be desired, we decided to 
take no equipage beyond that needed for this 
particular case, thus enabling us to load our 
sledge as little as possible. This was more 
especially desirable as fresh snow having 
fallen in the night it became all the more im- 
portant that the komatik should run lightly. 
As it turned out we did well, for the down- 
fall continued steadily all the morning, and 
the drifts were enormous when we had to 
force through wooded country. The leading 
dogs sank into the feathery blanket almost 
out of sight, and though we walked ahead all 
day in our racquets to beat a path for them, 
we had to give them turn and turn about in 
their positions in the train. 

Night overtook us, in the middle of the 
country, and glad enough we were, in a dense 



On HIS BEAM ENDS 99 

spruce thicket, called the " Green Rudge," 
locally, to dig out a wayside log tilt or hut, 
and to crawl down into it for the night. 
With the perversity that sometimes appears 
to characterize inanimate things, the down- 
fall during the hours of darkness was almost 
phenomenal, and though we were ready for 
starting long before daylight we were forced 
to hasten slowly by being unable in the dark 
to unearth two recalcitrant dogs who were 
hidden snugly asleep under the snow. 

The overcoming of physical difficulties is 
one of the chief pleasures in life, so when, as 
it grew dusk that evening, we emerged on 
the southern shore of the Straits of Belle Isle, 
we felt quite pleased with ourselves, even if 
we had lost twenty- four hours on our usual 
time. There were only eighteen miles more 
to do. The land in this section is level and 
the road is kept more or less beaten by the 
numerous teams travelling over it. When 
we had " boiled the kettle " and shaken the 
snow out of ourselves, we pushed on towards 
our destination. 

Soon only three miles remained. The 
familiar lighthouse out on an island was in 
sight and we expected in a few minutes to be 
in the warmth of the comfortable cottage of 
our patient. 



loo DOWN NORTH on TJie LABRADOR 

But as chance would have it, just as we 
came to the parting of the trails, one of which 
led out to a little village on a long promontory, 
we noticed so many fresh tracks of komatiks 
that we guessed something unusual must be 
occurring. " Anything wrong out at Safety 
Cove ? " I sang out to the messengers who 
had come to fetch us. " Nothing we knows 
on, 'cept us heard Jim Kempson had a hurt 
on his knee, but us 'lows there must be 
more than that doing to take all this lot out 
there. For they hasn't come back by their 
tracks, and there's a power of 'em gone." 

"There's a couple of men up on the top, 
doctor," one of the men shouted as we swung 
round the next hillside, and a little bunch of 
houses nestling above the cove loomed up 
against the snow. " 'Low them's watching 
to see us pass. See, them's got a flag up ! " 
he added excitedly. " All right, Charley. 
Ouk ! ouk ! ouk ! " (to the right) to the lead- 
ing dog, and our little cavalcade in less than 
a trice was swinging off in the new direc- 
tion. 

Evidently we were spotted instantly by the 
vidette, for the}'' commenced running down 
the hill to meet us, and we were soon in pos- 
session of the facts that were causing trouble. 
Jim's knee had got worse and worse, and 



0?t HIS BEAM ENDS loi 

" there was no stopping it." It had swelled 
up and down till his leg was as large as his 
body, and all hands said he was dying. 

According to the custom of the coast under 
these circumstances, all his friends had 
gathered from far and near to show their 
sympathy — " just to see him off," as some 
one once put it. Jim had a wife and four chil- 
dren, and only four rooms all told — a kitchen 
and living-room below and two tiny bed- 
rooms in the slope of the roof above. The 
inevitable result was that the house was 
packed like a beehive and the air eould al- 
most be cut in slices with a knife. In one of 
the small up-stairs rooms lay poor Jim on 
his back, struggling for life, encouraged by 
as many friends as could get in at once, but 
hampered sadly by bad air and heat. 

Having succeeded in the delicate task of 
persuading this kindly assembly that their 
room was really of infinitely more value than 
their company, and in sending the four chil- 
dren to other houses, we retained three good 
handy men and started in to work. 

With as little noise as possible the board 
partition between the two bedrooms was 
taken down, and one hand told off to plane it 
up, and convert it into a full-length bath. 
Assistant No. 2 was detailed to make a win- 



I02 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

dow in the roof, and No. 3 to carry away 
everything movable to the store outside. 
The new room was meanwhile cleansed and 
all the kettles of the village set boiling, as 
many as possible on our own down-stair stove. 
Food was also short ; there was neither a drop 
of any stimulant nor a tin of milk obtainable 
— much less fresh milk. Messengers volun- 
teered to try and cross the ice and get some at 
the lighthouse ; and fortunately in this they 
were successful. 

The condition of the patient resembled that 
of a rapidly spreading erysipelas. The only 
hope of saving his life lay in numerous and 
extensive incisions. As no lancet was obtain- 
able, our hunting-knife had to be impressed 
to replace one. An anaesthetic anyhow was 
out of the question. For an antiseptic a bot- 
tle of strong carbolic acid, left in the next vil- 
lage by our hospital boat for another case the 
previous summer, was fortunately brought 
in just when we were -ready, and after some 
hot milk had been administered, the rough 
but most admirably sensible full-length bath, 
made out of the old partition — the seams 
being well caulked with pitch — also made its 
appearance. Filled with its warm antiseptic 
solution, it was immediately put to use. The 
patient, in whom seven long incisions had 



On HIS BEAM ENDS 103 

been made, was placed reclining in it. He 
described it after as being like crimping a 
cod. Blankets and quilts, commandeered 
from the neighbours, were now packed all 
round, while a cover made with fishermen's 
oilskin jackets protected those from getting 
wet. In this way it was comparatively easy 
to maintain an even temperature. Regular 
port and starboard watches were set, and 
when morning dawned we ventured to finish 
our own journey and settle the broken-arm 
patient before turning in for some sleep. 

The cheerful woman whom we had origi- 
nally set out to help almost persuaded us that 
it was a pleasure having a broken arm — the 
chance for his life it was the means of giving 
to her poor neighbour, to her mind quite off- 
set the inconvenience and the pain which 
would make so many people selfishly intro- 
spective. 

The need for constant supervision of the 
kindly and unremitting efforts of my strange 
nursing staff left me little time to visit else- 
where, and the track from my lodging to the 
sick man's house was soon worn as hard as a 
macadam road. To get so heavy a man 
easily in and out of the bath called for no lit- 
tle strength and skill, and I had to drill my 
squad with a dummy, for Jim had no strength 



I04 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

to lose from rough handling. How much 
oakum was picked for dressing I cannot say- 
now, but the occupants of the next door 
neighbour's front room came nearer to en- 
joying the calling of a convict than ever 
any one previously has in our north country. 

The supply of milk from the lighthouse was 
limited, and it had to be served out as if it 
were rations for a shipwrecked crew. For- 
tunately some of the boys came across 
ptarmigan on the second day, and the fresh 
broth was as welcome as the first flowers of 
spring. Numbers of small offerings of this 
kind were gladly brought in from a distance 
of many miles, as soon as the news reached 
along the coast of the reason they were 
needed. The unstinted, unselfish kindness of 
the poor for the poor made even these anxious 
days a benediction to us workers. Surely 
the real kingdom of God was deeper in the 
hearts of this people than any one could pos- 
sibly have supposed. The showers of kind 
acts, little though they may have appeared, 
were no small spur to all the rest of us to do 
our best, as night succeeded day and there 
still was no improvement in poor Jim's condi- 
tion — nothing that suggested to us any 
chance of ultimate success. 

The fourth day was drawing to a close. 



On HIS BEAM ENDS 105 

Though a crowd of friends sat with me by 
the log fire in the fisherman's hut, where I 
was being temporarily entertained, my mind 
kept wandering over the miles of snow 
back to our people on the western coast. I 
knew that by now the sick that we had left 
behind, and possibly others who had gath- 
ered since, must be anxiously awaiting my 
return. I was too restless to notice even 
much of the conversation. So, not unnat- 
urally, I had failed to realize that the talk 
had turned to Jim and his chances, and what 
to do with his little ones if he did not pull 
through. "There's no money round here 
on Jim's chances, doctor," one man re- 
marked, "though they does say he seemed 
like clawing to windward a bit after them 
cuts." 

"Don't be too sure, Dick," chimed in 
another ; " Jim's lived hard o' late, but there's 
good stuff in him. There wasn't a soft spot 
in his timbers when this took him." 

" It was always that way with Jim," added 
a third. " Not much to look at in fine 
weather, but never no give when t' pinch 
came." 

One of the company, sailor-like, had been 
out to get " a sight o' the weather," not for 
any particular reason, except that the men 



lo6 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

find it hard to sit still for long at a time. A 
breeze of fresh cold air as he opened the 
door roused us to the fact that he was re- 
turning, and in the conventional way, hardly 
even anticipating an answer, he was greeted 
with the usual question, "Well, what of it, 
Sam ? Anything doing ? " 

"Night's fine," he replied. "There's lights 
moving across t' hill by Jim's house — seems 
as if something was going on over there." 

There was at once a general move in the 
company, and each man momentarily 
searched the faces of the others. Soon the 
whole company were on their feet, and one 
by one, almost shamefacedly, slunk out into 
the night. 

For myself, I just sat on staring into the 
fire, wondering if all our efforts and prayers 
that this humble life might be spared us a 
little longer had been in vain. True, when 
a skiff sinks before the storm, the tiny eddy 
and gap in the waters is noticeable only to 
those very close at hand, and the great sea 
then rushes in, and no trace of the catas- 
trophe is discernible. If such were God's 
will now we could only bow to it, and face 
the aftermath as it becomes a brother, who is 
one not only in name, to try and do. 

The hurry of steps and the lifting of the 



Oft HIS BEAM ENDS 107 

latch brought me quickly back from the land 
of dreams. A muffled figure, with a large 
hurricane lantern, was being ushered in by 
the crowd of friends who had just gone out. 

The footsteps told me the news was good 
before my uncouth looking head nurse with 
his irrepressible Irish humour broke out: 
" Bedad, doctor, Jim's showing ould Nick a 
clean pair o' legs after all. He's hisself 
again if ever he was." 

" Be sensible, Pat, and tell me what has 
happened." 

" Oh, don't distress yourself, doctor ; 'tis 
himself that's woken up and asked for some- 
thing." 

The diagnosis of a professional nurse 
would have given me no more confidence 
This was not the first sick-bed Pat had 
watched over by a long way, rough fisher- 
man though he looked, and the instinct of 
simple love is often as true a guide as even 
text-book or lecture. It was with a load off 
my heart that I started to accompany the 
faithful watcher back over the snow. 

" Prayer is out of date," a man of millions 
said to me only a few days ago. " No one 
believes now that prayer makes any real 
difference." But I like to think still that 
there are **more things in God's heaven than 



io8 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

man wots of," and though Pat and I said our 
prayers differently, we both thanked God 
together that night for sparing the Hfe of the 
man we had, each in our own way, been 
asking God for. 

As I harnessed up the dogs next morn- 
ing and started on a seventy mile drive 
home, the very team seemed to be of my 
mind also, and even the weather chimed in 
and endorsed the verdict that God is in His 
heaven, and that so long as He permits us to 
believe that we can serve Him, life is very 
much worth while. 



VIII 

A Partial Conversion 

FOR two years I had made summer 
voyages in our one hundred and 
fifty ton hospital schooner from Eng- 
land to Labrador, returning when the summer 
exodus of fishermen was driven south by 
the advance of winter. The short seasons of 
open water had been spent in doing what we 
could to help the fishermen. A local failure 
of the fisheries the previous year had brought 
me a piteous appeal to try and aid a district 
further south than I had hitherto considered 
our territory. Moreover there had appeared 
that spring a sickness that was painful and 
fatal — a new terror to the settlers. Large 
black bruises broke out about their bodies. 
Joints became suddenly rigid. Mouth and 
gums turned purple and fetid. No doctor 
ever visited that coast, not even on the oc- 
casional mail-boat. It was a most pathetic 
situation. "Would I at least come in and 
see them?" 

So it happened that as we once more 
109 



no DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

sailed south, in company with the large fish- 
ing fleet that were again returning home, we 
ran in and anchored in the safest and most 
central harbour, to decide finally whether we 
should stay the winter on "the French 
Shore." A cursory visit around the little 
settlement left no doubt in our minds that 
there existed an undeniable need for such 
services as we could render, and an ample 
scope for labour that would keep us busy till 
our schooner could return to us from England 
once more. It was equally and somewhat 
painfully apparent, however, that we were not 
overwell equipped for the task. Finally, how- 
ever, we proceeded to disembark, for with 
me was a young friend from England who 
had volunteered to help me with whatever 
work I might be called upon to do. 

Our difficulties began at once. It was by 
no means such an easy matter as might be 
supposed to find a lodging-place among 
the cottages of which the village consisted. 
When finally we had succeeded in trans- 
forming two rooms to suit our purposes, it 
was still evident that if we were to do any 
serious surgical work we must find accommo- 
dation in some other house for our sick folk. 
Owing to the constant calls from far as well 



A PARTIAL CONVERSION in 

as near, during the first few weeks after the 
schooner left us, we were prevented in spite 
of our best efforts from giving the time 
necessary to secure that resemblance to a 
hospital which we desired. Indeed the 
March gales had already broken up much 
of the standing ice that all winter had en- 
abled us to cross the arms of the sea, and 
answer quickly the calls of our neighbours, 
before half another house was really ready for 
surgical occupation. 

The great bridge that crossed to some off- 
lying islands had just given way before an 
angry Atlantic ground swell, heaving in under 
the outside ice, and thus had temporarily cut 
the inhabitants off from all communication 
with the mainland. We were not a little 
surprised, therefore, to be suddenly sum- 
moned out of bed one night by the stentorian 
voices of a number of men gathered out- 
side our cottage. On descending to admit 
them we found that they were the crew 
of a sealing skiff that had forced their way 
in through the running ice. That some- 
thing serious must have happened was 
evident The men were excited and in 
haste. So while some started our fire and 
got the kettle on — the universal order of 
events all along our coast — the skipper told 



112 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

us how " Tim Bryan had shot hisself, and 
wanted a doctor bad, right off." Three men 
had been duck shooting together and from a 
point of vantage where they " were well 
stowed away" they had just had "a des- 
perate shot into a small pond o' water," 
formed by a fissure in the ice. They had 
killed or crippled some seventy-six birds, and 
Tim had been reloading in so great a hurry 
to secure the wounded ones, that a spark 
left in his gun had exploded the new charge. 
The flash from the muzzle had entered the 
powder horn that he held inverted over the 
muzzle. To stop the bleeding his comrades 
had rushed him home, and plunged the 
shattered right hand into the flour barrel. 
This had fortunately proved effective. Pain 
and weakness from the loss of blood had, 
however, caused them to leave him there in 
his own home. "Would we come right 
along?" There was much heavy running 
ice and they were anxious to get back while 
the channel they had rowed along might still 
make it possible. 

After less than an hour's rest and refresh- 
ment these Vikings were ready to start on 
their return voyage, though it was still pitch 
dark, and the sea was covered with the slob- 
ice. With them on the journey back went 



A PARTIAL CONVERSION 113 

my young colleague, leaving me to "stand 
by " our other patients, from some of whom 
1 dared not risk being cut off. 

The moving of the injured man proved 
a harder task than was anticipated, and 
another valuable forty-eight hours elapsed 
before he was carried up to our makeshift 
hospital. 

Tim was a family man — he had five 
small children and a wife dependent on him. 
He had nothing but his skill as a fish- 
erman and trapper to count on for his daily 
food. Now — alas — his right hand lay before 
me, one huge shattered mass of blood, flour, 
and corruption. The man himself was 
flushed and feverish ; already his face had as- 
sumed the sunken aspect of general blood 
infection — the telltale glands in the armpit 
were red and swollen. I was forced to put 
the position plainly to him — "Tim, boy, if 
what's left of your hand isn't cut off it will 
probably cost you your life." 

"Oh, doctor," he replied, "don't tell me 
that. It's not the hand I'm thinking of — 
but it's my right one, doctor. It will mean 
that we shall all starve together. Can you 
do nothing to help me save it, doctor? For 
God's sake, say you can," and the great 



114 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

strong man, now utterly overwrought, broke 
down and wept like a child. 

** Yes, Tim, we can try, if you decide to 
chance it. But you should know that the risk 
to your life will be very great, and even if we 
do save what is left of the hand, it may be of 
no use to you." 

" Give me an hour to think it over, won't 
you, doctor, and then I'll give you my an- 
swer." 

Laying the arm on a weighted board and 
sinking the whole into a trough of carbolized 
hot water, we went off, leaving only his com- 
rades to give him counsel. The clock 
marked one hour exactly when we returned 
for his decision, for time then was of the ut- 
most importance. The patient was quieter 
now. His piercing blue eyes seemed trying 
to look through me as I walked up to the 
couch on which he lay stretched out. He 
had evidently made up his mind — and his an- 
swer was without doubt final. There was no 
questioning the tone in which he said, " I'd 
rather be dead than live without her, doctor. 
You knows what that would mean, to live 
like that and see 'em starve. You must just 
do your best. They all knows you'll do 
that." 

The preliminary operation had to be done 



A PARTIAL CONVERSION 115 

without putting him to sleep — for he dreaded 
the idea as less familiar than pain, which he 
knew well enough how to bear — -while we 
too were glad enough not to have to incur 
the additional risk of an anaesthetic in his 
condition. 

By the time we were through, the handy 
owner of our little house had ready for us a 
wooden arm bath of large dimensions with 
well-rounded and sloping sides, capable of 
holding plenty of water. The whole was as 
neat and water-tight as the boats he built, its 
seams being well caulked with pitch. 

Into this the arm was slung, with real blocks 
and tackles from the ceiling, so as to be quite 
movable. And so the long struggle began. 

Messengers had been despatched long be- 
fore for the priest, who was domiciled fifty miles 
to the south and so was considered compara- 
tively close. The good fellow arrived just 
at this juncture, a man of hearty, cheerful 
disposition, whose ministrations were, if of 
no other value, at any rate a psychological 
factor that added yet another chance of suc- 
cess in the struggle we were dreading. 

At the end of the first week victory seemed 
ours. The priest had left for the south en- 
trusting the daily reading of the prayers from 



Ii6 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

the missal to the good house-mother, who, 
though herself a very rigid Methodist, was 
far too kind of heart to feel any compunction 
in rendering a service that might give help 
or pleasure to another in trouble. It was 
possibly some little offset to her conscience 
that the wording was in Latin, in which 
language she was not versed, nor for that 
same reason did errors in reading seriously 
affect poor Tim. 

By the tenth day the swelling of the shat- 
tered limb was in no way reduced — the 
powder driven in before being burnt re- 
sisted all attempts to get a clean wound. 
The brave fellow had lost flesh steadily. To 
keep his arm under the hot solution he was 
forced to sleep in a sitting position, and now 
our scanty supplies of antiseptics were get- 
ting exhausted. Once more we had to ad- 
vise him that he was risking his life, and 
that even removal of the whole arm might 
be of little value if there were any longer de- 
lay. But Tim was as immovable as a rock, 
" I'd rather die without it, doctor, I 
couldn't bear to live and be no use to no 
one." It was of course still impossible to 
leave him by night or day, and with no 
trained nurse to help, we took turns to re- 



A PARTIAL CONVERSION 117 

main in the room at night, getting what 
sleep we could in our sleeping bags, 
stretched out on an improvised settee. 

Our supply of antiseptics finally ran out at 
the end of the fourth week, and we had to 
do the best we could with well-boiled water. 
This involved a material increase in the sup- 
ply needed, and taxed to the utmost our ket- 
tle capacity. The water itself had to be car- 
ried a long way, as every source of supply 
near at hand was frozen solid. Chopped ice 
thrown into the kettle served for the limited 
needs of the household under ordinary cir- 
cumstances. We had now to look to our 
dogs, or those of some kindly neighbour, to 
haul us barrels full of water from a rapid 
mountain stream that never froze solid quite 
to the bottom. 

To add to our troubles we had not again 
been able to communicate with the islands 
The heavy Atlantic ice outside had been con- 
stantly gliding through the channels with 
strong winds and a heavy swell, so that we 
had not the comfort of being able to keep 
Tim's wife and friends informed of our views 
of the 'situation. Moreover, the poor fellow 
had been suffering a great deal of pain of 
late and it was simply impossible to keep 
him constantly under opiates. At his own 



Ii8 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

urgent request messengers were once more 
despatched to the priest that he might at 
least send down a few bottles of water that 
he had blessed, in the hope that it might 
afford some relief. Of this each morning 
and evening a few drops were sprinkled in 
the bath before his eyes, and though, of 
course, we had had to boil it beforehand, it 
didn't lose its efficiency. For it never failed 
to quiet him down, and so to render possible 
the rest that was a vital necessity in his con- 
dition. 

It was not till six weeks had elapsed that 
it became no longer necessary to float the 
wounded limb. Openings and counter-open- 
ings had been imperative as high up as the 
armpit, and even now, though delighted with 
the fact that with improving appetite and 
sleep, Tim's life was going to be spared, 
we were rather apprehensive that the result 
he dreaded more than death would still be 
unavoidable. The arm was a veritable wreck 
to look at, and as immovable as the broom- 
handle, which it much resembled. What a 
joyous night it was, however, when at last 
we got Tim out of his armchair and into a 
bed between real sheets. An event which, 
happening on the same day that we once 
more got news through from the islands, 



A PARTIAL CONVERSION 119 

made it indeed a red-letter day in our annals. 
A fortnight's massage and passive move- 
ments worked wonders with the arm and 
wrist, but more than that is necessary for a 
hook and line fisherman. 

To earn a living a poor man like Tim 
must be able to row cross handed, that is 
with two oars at once — to haul his long 
hand-lines he must be able to grip them with 
either, and so haul them in hand over hand 
— the only alternative being to nip the part 
hauled in by one knee against the gunwale 
of the boat, while the hand seeks a new grip. 
In our deep waters this process makes fish- 
ing altogether too slow to be remunerative. 

It therefore became necessary to try a sec- 
ondary operation with a view to giving him 
something against which to oppose the 
thumb, which he was, as if by a miracle, 
still able to control. By a little careful 
scheming beforehand and a transposition of 
fragments, a plan devised to accomplish this 
proved successful beyond our anticipation. 
Though, through lack of tendon tissue, we 
could only make the hand resemble a bird's 
bill with but one movable jaw, we secured 
the ability to "nip," which, though appar- 
ently only a slight advantage, really meant 
all the difference in the world to our friend. 



I20 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

The final stage was to obtain a covering 
for the still large open surface from which the 
skin had been destroyed. We were all so 
interested by Tim's pluck and gratitude that 
volunteers to supply grafts from themselves 
for that purpose were not long lacking, and 
before the time came for Tim to leave us, 
and commence the summer fishing, he was 
to all intents and purposes a well man. Once 
or twice during the summer his small boat 
might have been noticed running in to our 
harbour, during a spell in the fishing, just 
to report progress. Happily it was so or- 
dered that the season should prove a good 
one for the inshore fishermen, and it added 
no little to our pleasure to see now and 
again the beaming countenance of our friend, 
as he came with some small offering to help 
on similar work being done for others. 
With a quiet smile on his face he would 
sometimes hold up the injured hand, and 
point out the similarity of it to the fore fin 
of one of our seals, dryly remarking on one 
occasion, " Well, doctor, all the rest of me 
is Catholic, but I 'lows even I can't stop this 
flipper being Protestant." 



IX 

The Sources of Pleasure 

IN our small mission hospital steamer, 
Straihcona, we were as usual cruising 
among the fishing fleets of Labrador 
during the season of open water. 

"There's a big yacht alongside, doctor, 
and their boat has brought you over a letter,'' 
said our steward one morning, handing me a 
neat envelope bearing the crest of a big yacht 
club. We were working at the time over a 
sick man in the little hospital below decks, 
where we hold our peripatetic clinic. Thus 
we had missed seeing her approach. A 
crowd of other applicants were waiting on 
deck for such services as we could render. 

The caparisons of wealth are so rare in our 
northern regions that this unexpected news 
brought us all up on deck. Anchored quite 
close alongside was a large and beautiful 
steam yacht. Her brass work shone in the sun- 
shine, and her enamelled paintwork gleamed 
and glistened so beautifully, it did one real 
good to look at her. She carried also the 
snowiest of white sails, which were lying still 

121 



122 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

" deshabille " on the spars, having been re- 
cently lowered. The whole was touched off 
by the gay bunting flying at her foremast 
and flagpole that announced her club affilia- 
tion and her country. A party of gaily 
dressed ladies and gentlemen in yachting suits 
were on the bridge, some of whom were spy- 
ing down through glasses at the crowded 
decks of our battered little mission steamer. 
Remembering the feelings that scratches on 
painted sides inspired in me before mission 
work compelled any interest, I confess I felt 
momentarily ashamed of the rust marks, where 
the banging of many boats alongside had 
chipped off our spring coat of paint. 

On opening the note it proved to contain 
an introduction from a mutual friend, and an 
invitation to go on board to lunch which 
"would be served shortly.'* As there was 
a thoughtful postscript, "no need to dress 
up," I accepted more readily, not to say more 
easily, considering the state of a Labrador 
wardrobe. 

She certainly was a beauty. Hard wood 
decks in tiny strips, mahogany deck houses, 
well nickelled fittings, bright Turkish mats, 
setting off red Morocco leather upholsterings. 
To the table, laden with southern delicacies 
•f fruit, fresh from her ice lockers, was added 



The SOURCES of PLEASURE 123 

all the attraction that the best of silver and 
cut glass could afford. The colouring of the 
ladies' dresses, the immaculate table furnish- 
ings, and the almost polished stewards, sent 
a sensation down one's back, when thus sud- 
denly contrasted with our own humble ship, 
like that afforded by the morning plunge into 
these always stimulating waters. 

Yet in spite of it all, the prevailing note in 
the conversation was one of discontent, and 
there seemed to be more complaints against 
the **bad luck" they were having than I had 
heard since we put to sea. The sole object 
of their cruise was obviously pleasure. They 
had hoped to trap that somewhat fickle lady 
by catching unsophisticated salmon, large and 
numerous, on what our people call a " fly 
pole." But it seemed the salmon in the three 
rivers they had already tried had not fallen in 
with their ideas on the matter. "The largest 
we've landed," said my host, "was only fifteen 
pounds." "Gerald caught eight in two 
hours the other day in one pool, but they only 
ran to six pounds apiece." "These con- 
founded rivers are a fraud," was the general 
consensus of opinion. 

This decision was emphasized by the fact 
that the party had ventured off on one oc- 
casion without proper provision against mo»- 



12^ DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

quitoes, and the results had been neither dig- 
nified nor aesthetic. They had eventually 
heard that the best rivers for salmon fishing 
were known to me, and they had sought me 
out to ask advice as to which one to try next. 
Having explained that an old fox doesn't 
readily go to a trap, and consequently the 
unwisdom of giving advice to any one, such 
charts as exist of our coast were produced 
and I marked in a few rivers that the cartog- 
raphers have overlooked. 

Our new found acquaintances proved to be 
what I have heard called " good sportsmen," 
in spite of their environment of soft things. 
Though a long pull up to the " first pool " 
and a poor anchorage " when the wind came 
in northeasterly" did not seem to appeal 
much to them when deciding the all impor- 
tant question as where to go next. What a 
terrible knotty point it was ! Unluckily there 

was a show at in three weeks' time, 

which two at least ought not to miss, and then 
there was what appeared to be an exceedingly 
important house party, which left two others 
just as anxious. For these causes a some- 
what more distant but almost " dead certain 
river " proved a thorn in the flesh which cost 
me much valuable time discussing. One 
couldn't help feeling sorry that there was any 



The SOURCES of PLEASURE 125 

friction over even a point of, what appeared 
to them, such absorbing importance. 

But I confess what was troubUng me most 
now was my own temporary desertion of my 
colleague on the mission boat, whom I had 
felt mean in having to leave behind at all on 
this great occasion. For he was such a good 
fellow and had such a keen sense of humour, 
and was moreover a volunteer at his own ex- 
pense, having actually left his own yacht out 
of commission for the season to come and 
give me a hand among the fishermen. 

At length a decision appeared to be arrived 
at, and I perceived my hosts were getting 
anxious to be off about their business. I felt 
also that it would not be right to let them 
waste further time. So I rose and bade good- 
bye to my new acquaintances and prepared 
to take my leave. My courteous host accom- 
panied me to the gangway. As we ap- 
proached we heard a somewhat acrimonious 
discussion being carried on from the ladder. 
It proved to be the yacht's boatswain, who 
was ordering a fishing boat away from the 
side of the ship, to which a stalwart fisherman 
had evidently intended to fasten it. There 
was a girl in the stern of the boat, wrapped 
round in a warm shawl. 

" The doctor says you was going to 



126 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

Harbour, sir," said the fisherman, catching 
sight of the owner walking with me, " and 
perhaps you'd give her a passage down to 
hospital. She be very sick, sir, and he says 
it wouldn't be far out of your way." 

" You keep that boat away from our paint, 
I tell you," was the boatswain's only reply. 
" You've made a black smudge already. She 
wouldn't be fit to look at in half an hour, I 
tell you." 

I recognized the boat, and knew the kind- 
ness it would be to get the girl to where she 
could be properly taken care of, so I plucked 
up courage and explained that we were our- 
selves bound the other way, and that as they 
would have to pass near the hospital before 
night, it would only be a deck passage that 
she would need. 

I could see at once I had utterly failed t@ 
realize the view-point of my friend. It had 
absolutely never occurred to me how they re- 
garded sickness of any kind. He was far 
too courteous to say anything to hurt my 
feelings, but I could see what a terrible new 
feature I had introduced into his already suf- 
ficiently puzzling dilemma. He merely re- 
plied, "I'll speak to the others, if you'll wait 
a moment." Meanwhile he thoughtfully told 
the boatswain to take the boat's painter and 



The SOURCES of PLEASURE 127 

make it fast. But I felt like a bull in a china 
shop all the same as I leaned on the rail, while 
he went forward to fling this new thunder- 
bolt among his guests, leaving me to watch 
the evidently chagrined boatswain fending off 
the intruding boat with a fine brass-topped 
boat-hook, as if it were some dangerous 
animal. 

"Is there no other way to get the girl 
where she wants to go ? " queried the owner 
on his return. " She might be infectious, you 
know, and the ladies are just a little afraid." 

Fortunately that point had been agitating 
my brains also during "the interim" and I 
was all ready with an answer. " Oh, don't 
trouble, that schooner over there is going 
north soon, and I have no doubt I can ar- 
range with the skipper to take her. They 
are more accustomed to that kind of work, 
and will be glad to do it, I know. Indeed I 
often get them to do that sort of thing for 
me. I assure you it's nothing out of the or- 
dinary and I'm really sorry to have added to 
your worries." 

" Do you think they'd go at once?" he re- 
plied. "I shouldn't be easy if I thought 
anything might happen to the girl by the 
delay." 

" I can't be sure, of course, because it would 



128 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

not do to ask them, if they are doing well 
with the fish here — it might mean losing a 
voyage of fish. But I'll certainly do my best, 
and I beg you not to worry further." 

With a sigh of relief he took out his pocket- 
book. "There's one hundred dollars," he 
said ; " do you think that they'd run her down 
specially to the hospital for that?" 

** I should feel less diffidence in asking 
them," I replied. " But the skipper wouldn't 
take the money, I can assure you, for carry- 
ing any sick person along, unless his share- 
men will lose by it. I know his men are on 
shares, and it might give them cause to com- 
plain, as they wouldn't feel they were asked 
in the matter, and therefore they wouldn't 
have the pleasure of doing the kindness." 
We never pay on the coast for this kind of 
brotherliness. It is the only wealth they have 
to give away much of, and they know the 
value of the joy of service. 

The yacht waited long enough to see that 
the schooner master was willing — and then 
got up her anchors and left us. But I no- 
ticed, as she passed the heads, that in spite 
of our long conference and final decision she 
headed after all in the opposite direction. 
Maybe, I thought, they were sent in here to 
learn about other things than they expected. 



The SOURCES of PLEASURE 129 

I found my colleague patiently at work 
still, when I returned on board. I narrated 
the incidents of my visit to the yacht. 

" I hope they won't have anything more 
to interrupt their enjoyments," he replied, 
" but it sort of makes one feel not desirous to 
change places with them." 



X 

Suzanne 

UNCLE JONAS had missed the fish. 
For the first time within the memory 
of many neighbours in Deep Water 
Creek Uncle Jonas' schooner had "come 
back from t' Larbador, clean." 

Under ordinary circumstances even the 
catastrophe of one family being unable to 
purchase supplies for the winter would not 
have been a matter of deep concern to the 
inhabitants of the Creek. For they were 
accustomed to having " to make things do " 
and no one ever heard a real Livyere from 
the Atlantic seaboard " squealing " because 
it had "pleased t' Lord they shouldn't be 
able to reach to fats after Easter." 

But this case was somewhat different. 
Uncle Jonas' hospitality was an institution. 
It was as much a matter of course as the ice 
in the harbour. Every benighted traveller, 
every desolate family following the komatik 
track because they had no longer any food 
in the locker at home, even every starving 
130 



SUZANNE 131 

dog team whose lord and master could no 
longer find them a morsel to put in their 
stomachs, knew which way to turn when 
they caught sight of the blue smoke of the 
cottages above the cliffs that made the 
harbour of Deep Water Creek, Uncle Jonas' 
had ever been a veritable city of refuge for 
many miles of coast both north and south. 

No one, good, bad or indifferent had ever 
been known to knock at Uncle Jonas' door 
without getting, whatever the time of day, 
the cheery invitation " to sit right in and 
have a cup o' hot tea." 

But though this unaffected love out of a 
pure heart had ever proved to the man's own 
soul the truest of God's blessings, it had not 
been purchased without cost. For Uncle 
Jonas enjoyed yet another blessing straight 
from God's hands, and that was a quiverful 
of children — possessions of which a million- 
aire might have well been proud. His four 
stalwart boys were already able to help with 
the trap net, and though the youngest could 
scarcely yet row " cross-handed," i. 0., handle 
two oars at once, all four were rated in the 
crew of the Saucy Lass when Uncle Jonas 
cleared in the spring of the year for the 
annual voyage " Northward Ho." His five 
lasses also, having come early in the sequence, 



132 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

had been invaluable, first in helping in the 
home and in the garden and with the rapidly 
following babies — while the eldest had twice 
sailed as cook in the schooner before the 
boys had been of an age to leave home. She 
was eighteen now, and though as bonnie a 
lass as the countryside could produce, with 
her clear, rosy cheeks and the curly shock of 
black hair she had inherited from her mother, 
she was still living at home. 

There are no industries in the Creek at 
which young women can earn money to 
help out on expenses. When the men bring 
home a full fare, however, they are able to 
earn quite a bit at washing, cleaning and 
spreading the fish and so helping to get it 
earlier to the market and secure a better 
price. This year even that occupation was 
denied them. 

It is not unnatural that the families in 
these out-of-the-world places should cling 
together with even more than the tenacity 
we are accustomed to in the more crowded 
centres. For everything outside is like one 
vast unknown land and ghosts of the dan- 
gers that lurk there unseen haunt the fancies 
of our home-loving fisher folk. Indeed, who 
shall blame them for the sensitiveness of their 
imagination, seeing that the contempt of 



SUZANNE 133 

familiarity has so often proved the path to 
ruin among our own. 

However, with Uncle Jonas' failure to secure 
a "fare of fish " a crisis of unusual portent 
faced the Creek. If he had no fish under salt, 
there were certainly others in the same situ- 
ation, and there could be little doubt that 
there would be more mouths than the sup- 
plies attainable before navigation closed could 
be expected to fill. No wonder that a certain 
amount of gloom lurked in this usually happy 
little cove. 

There seemed only one way out of the 
dilemma as far as the village fathers could see, 
and that was to lessen the number of mouths. 

Reluctantly, as Virginius of old, Uncle 
Jonas realized that only one way was open 
to him. His eldest girl, Suzanne, would have 
to go out to service. It was neither a pleas- 
ant nor easy task to finally bring the matter 
to an issue, and it was only after many tear- 
ful farewells that at length, with her home- 
made travelling chest filled with all the little 
tokens of love that her family and friends 
could " reach to," Suzanne finally embarked 
on the last schooner from the harbour 
that was going south. Thus she fared forth 
into the wide and unknown world beyond 
the dearly loved, though rugged cluster of 



134 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

rocks that closes the harbour in, and that 
were not inappropriately known as Break- 
Heart-Point. 

The letters that reach Deep Water Creek 
in winter are few and far between. True, 
twice during the long months of frozen water, 
toiling dog teams bring what we please to 
call the winter mails. But they are unsafe 
and uncertain at best, and many prefer to 
consider no news good news rather than risk 
anxious weeks because they have trusted to 
what has so often caused entirely unnecessary 
worry. 

One letter, however, did come through, 
and it brought the joyful news that Suzanne 
had found a home with a fine Christian 
planter, whose wife promised well to be a 
second mother to her. The maid that helps 
is as much one of the family as those she 
ministers to in our unsophisticated country. 

No letter was ever received from Suzanne 
again — only a brief line from the planter to 
tell Uncle Jonas the sad news that his own 
young wife had died during her first confine- 
ment just before Christmas. Consequently 
Suzanne had been thus out and about a good 
deal during the spring. She had eventually 
sailed north for the summer, having shipped 
as cook on a Labrador schooner entirely 



SUZANNE 135 

against his will. She insisted she had filled 
a similar position twice before. 

Late in the year I was cruising in our mis- 
sion hospital boat with the most northern fleet 
of vessels. We had been threading our way 
through a veritable archipelago of uncharted 
islands, seeking a place to bring up for the 
night where we might be in the neighbour- 
hood of other vessels, to the occupants of 
which we might be able to give medical or 
surgical assistance. Suddenly the watch re- 
ported a small schooner with flag at half 
mast, and a six-oared seine skiff with a 
spudger (or sign) up, crossing the ship's run 
to intercept us. 

It was only necessary to slow down and 
throw their bowman a line to soon have the 
seine master on board. 

"Skipper's compliments, doctor," he said 
as he gripped my hand. ** We've a girl very 
bad on board. We wants you to come along- 
side if so be you can manage it." 

We needed no second invitation. While 
our new friends returned to relieve their 
skipper's mind, and prepare for our arrival, 
we moored for the night and got ready such 
accessories as we deemed from the informa- 
tion derived from our visitors that the cir- 
cumstances called for. 



136 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

The details that impressed this case vividly 
on my memory, among so many others, do 
not bear retelling here. I was ushered into 
the schooner's small and dark after-cabin that 
had been abandoned by the kindly men. 
There, by the light of a tiny kerosene lamp, 
I found a young girl lying in the dark bunk 
built into the side of the ship. Her bloodless 
face, hollow eyes, parched lips and fevered 
cheeks, in the setting of a tangled mass of 
endless jet black wavy hair, loomed up as 
soon as my eyes got accustomed to the semi- 
darkness. I was conscious she was peering 
directly into my face with the hungry look of 
some wild animal at bay. 

A child of fifteen, her only companion, was 
crouching at the foot of the bunk, and add- 
ing to the pathos of the moment by her 
pitiful wailing, which seemed to beat time 
with the sounds of the waves lapping against 
the planking of the vessel's quarter. 

It was the old story — a trusting girl — a 
false lover, a betrayal — and a wild, unreason- 
ing flight to anywhere, anywhere that seemed 
to offer, however vaguely, still a temporary 
postponement of the inevitable harvest of 
shame, and sorrow, and suffering. Hither, 
hundreds of miles from anywhere, this mere 
child had fled, hoping that possibly death, 



SUZANNE 137 

with its false offer of mercy through oblivion, 
might spare her seeing the grief of those who 
loved her. For well she knew the inevitable 
consequences, when the sorrowful tale should 
reach the peaceful hamlet by the sea from 
which she had but so recently set out. 

This was no time for philosophy, however. 
Every minute was precious. For it was a 
case in which one had to work single-handed. 

The baby had been born four days and 
was dead. Every member of the crew was a 
stranger to the girl, and anyhow even with 
all the sympathy and kindliness so universal 
in our men of the sea, they had been far too 
frightened lest they might do injury to touch 
even a rag of the poor coverings that fairly 
littered the bed. For every man had con- 
tributed generously of whatever he had that 
might possibly be of any use. 

An hour later my patient, wrapped up like 
a mummy in clean linen and blankets, was 
tenderly carried on deck, and ferried over in 
the ship's jolly-boat to the hospital steamer. 
The boat that served us then was indeed so 
small that she allowed no special provision 
for patients. Beside my own cabin and the 
saloon," there were no spare accommodations 
below decks. On the settle of the latter, as 
being more airy and convenient for moving 



138 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

about in, we built up a bunk which should 
prevent at least the risk of a serious fall in a 
seaway. 

As soon as the first rays of dawn permitted 
us to weigh anchor we ran south for a Mora- 
vian mission station, where we hoped we 
might induce a kind-hearted married woman 
with some knowledge that might be useful to 
us in our dilemma to come south with us as 
far as our northern little hospital. 

It was not until next day, however, that 
we anchored once more in the quiet waters 
of Okkak Bay, Here, under the great cliffs 
that flank the harbour, lies the little sta- 
tion where for over one hundred years the 
self-sacrificing missionaries of the Moravian 
Church have been doing their best to uplift 
the Eskimos of this bleak north coast. One 
might have supposed that a mother with 
children of her own would hesitate even in 
such a dilemma from venturing forth in so 
small a vessel as ours. For the troubles of 
the sea are by no means confined to the sen- 
sitive organisms of those living in civilization. 

But she looked upon the opportunity as 
only one more gift of Him whose service had 
called her from the homeland nearly twenty 
years before. Without hesitation, as if it 
were an ordinary daily duty, she set about 



SUZANNE 139 

preparing for the trip, her husband agreeing 
to accompany us that he might see her home 
when her service should be no more needed. 

The evening was by no means idle ; to 
afford even a chance of saving my patient 
an operation became necessary, and the help 
from the station and the quiet of the harbour 
made it possible and wisest not to risk the 
delay that would be inevitable before we 
could reach hospital, if the weather should 
be boisterous. Things went well. Before 
night the patient's pulse had fallen, and the 
watchers in turn reported a much better rest. 
When morning came the girl herself felt she 
could face another stage of the journey. To 
run out to sea, make the necessary crossing 
and run in on a parallel of latitude to the 
hospital would be our quickest way. But 
that, with the wind on the land, made the 
heaving and rolling dangerous. By keeping 
the inside runs, we got smooth water, but 
could not move during the darkness. 

A brilliant aurora favoured us the next 
night and we pushed on until about mid- 
night, when its sudden disappearance left us 
in such absolute darkness that we were com- 
pelled to anchor at once. The improving 
pulse and temperature and the steady dim- 
inution of physical symptoms that had caused 



140 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

us much grave anxiety during these first two 
days gave me a light heart. 

Every time I visited the patient I expected 
to recognize the corresponding assurance in 
her face that she was really on the road to 
recovery, but every time I looked in vain. 
It became such a puzzle to me at last that to 
cheer her I assured her she would soon be 
herself again so that when the mail steamer 
should come to hospital we should be able 
to send her back as well as ever to her own 
home once more. I had watched her care- 
fully to see whether the thought of an early 
return to her loved ones would not act as a 
stimulus to the child, an encouragement to her 
to bring into play the force of her will, which 
to my mind is a most important factor on the 
road to recovery. It needed no Sherlock 
Holmes to tell me I had failed. She just lay 
there looking at me with a far-away look in 
her large black eyes, as of some terrified 
fawn that is too frightened to fly though 
certain of impending danger. 

I thought perhaps the loving encourage- 
ment of the woman who had ventured on the 
trip solely that for the Christ's sake she 
might be of service to a sister in distress 
might help me in the dilemma. So I ex- 
plained the need to her exactly, and begged 



SUZANNE 141 

her to do her best to effect that which I 
seemed utterly unable to attain. Tenderly 
and prayerfully she tried, but only once more 
to meet with failure. 

In the dusk, just before weighing our 
anchor, a trap-boat crew going to their nets 
caught sight of our riding light, and came 
aboard with a man who had a badly poisoned 
hand. They had not expected us to be going 
south so soon and were delighted beyond 
measure to be able to get relief and dress- 
ings. When they learned that we were run- 
ning south with a sick girl for hospital they 
at once inquired as to who it could be. 
Much to my delight they at once claimed 
acquaintance, and expressed a willingness to 
wait while I went down and prepared her for 
their visit, on the chance that they might be 
able to cheer her. I had hoped that so 
irresistible a reminder of the love of home 
might help her to cry, and so relieve the 
soul tension that was killing her. But once 
again it was simply to count failure. I could 
find no way to get her consent to see them, 
and I had sorrowfully to convey that infor- 
mation to the kindly fellows on deck. 

It was no longer possible to avoid recog- 
nizing the inevitable. I tried a final appeal 
to her to live for her parents' sake ; her only 



142 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR, 

reply at once was, " I want to die, doctor ; I 
can never go home again." 

The end came sooner than I had antici- 
pated. She began to fail so rapidly and so 
obviously that I decided to abandon the at- 
tempt to reach the hospital and finally an- 
chored in the still waters of a lovely inlet 
to await the last chapter of the tragedy. We 
had not long to wait : it was a scene I shall 
never forget. Overhead the sun had all day 
long been pouring down out of a perfect sky. 
It spoke eloquently of life and the presump- 
tion of its permanency. Beneath, the ex- 
quisite blue of the deep waters of the fjord 
were so still that the last thing in one's mind 
was any realization that storm and danger 
lurked in them and on them. 

The bold relief of the massive granite 
cliffs, flanked here and there with jet black 
columns of outcropping trap dykes, gave an 
entire sense of security and permanence. A 
majestic iceberg, carried in by the tides, lay 
only a few hundred yards away. The deep 
greens and blues in the great crevasses, that 
relieved its dazzling whiteness made one for- 
get for the moment that even so immense a 
mass of matter was, like ourselves and all the 
rest, but a thing of a day. Beyond that was 
silence — not even a single fishing craft lay 



SUZANNE 143 

within miles of us to disturb the sense of rest 
and security. The sun sank behind the hills. 
The tide was returning to the great ocean 
whence it had come. It seemed to me after 
all not an unfitting setting for the passing of a 
soul out on that tide, which is ever bearing 
on its bosom all humanity into the great un- 
known beyond, carrying out with it the 
visitor from the arctic which it had brought 
us in the morning, as we rendered the last 
service within our power to the poor girl 
whom we had so hoped to save. 

Wrapped in a simple flag, covered with a 
monument of unhewn boulders, we left her 
on the lonely headland which looked out over 
the great Atlantic, to wait till the day when 
the graves shall give up their dead. A 
simple wooden cross alone indicated the 
reason for this artificial interruption in the 
course of an untrammelled nature. It is the 
emblem of our highest hope, that which signi- 
fies that what is wrong in this life shall even- 
tually be put right in that which lies beyond. 

The crosspiece bore the legend : 

" Suzanne 
'Jesus said, neither do I condemn thee.^ " 

In a letter to her parents we did our best to 
comfort them. For we felt that the tragic 



10^ DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

sequence of events which led to the poor 
girl's death ought not to be laid to her 
charge. 

Two years passed away. Meantime many 
troubles were poured into my ears, and the 
memory of the pitiful little story of Suzanne 
had almost faded from my mind. 

Once again we were on the Labrador coast. 
Guided by the twinkling deck lights of fish- 
ing schooners " putting away " the day's 
catch after dark, we had anchored amongst 
them for the night in the roadstead near 
some high cliffs behind whose shelter they 
were working. We had announced our ar- 
rival with two blasts of our fog whistle — a 
signal known now to most of the fishermen. 
The usual crowd of visitors that resort to our 
little vessel for news, or medicine or other 
reasons, had come and gone. All was silent 
on deck, and we were just "stowing away" 
for the night when the sound of yet another 
boat alongside brought me up again. 

As I came out of the companion, a single 
white-haired fisherman was climbing over the 
side with his painter in his hand. He was 
evidently well on in years, though the feeble 
ray of our riding light scarcely did more 
than reveal the darkness. 

"Anything I can do for you, friend ? " I 



SUZANNE 145 

inquired, as he finished tying his boat fast 
and turned around as if uncertain what to do 
next. 

"No, not much. Thank ye all the same," 
he replied. And then hesitatingly, "I jest 
wants to see t' doctor." 

" I'm the doctor, friend. What do you 
need from me?" 

" Be you t' doctor what tended a girl 
'bout two years agone on t' schooner Shin- 
ing Light down north? The baby were 
born dead on board." 

" If you mean a girl called Suzanne, yes. 
I tended her and buried her." 

Without another word the old man rever- 
ently took off his well-worn sou'wester hat, 
and stood bareheaded before me. I re- 
member in the weird setting of the night 
his long white hair and gentle manner sug- 
gested the visit of some departed saint. I 
waited for him to speak, not knowing exactly 
what he wanted, though it was plain he had 
something of moment on his mind. 

** Do you'se think there be any hope us'll 
see her again, doctor?" he ventured at 
length. "I'd dearly love to tell the old 
woman what you think." 

" No, friend, I don't think it, I know it. 
I'm certain of it — as certain as that I see you 



146 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

now before me. But better than that, she 
was certain of it too before she left us." 

" What makes you say that, doctor ? I'd 
give all I have, glad enough, to be able to 
think that." 

" Well, friend, her face told me so. She was 
afraid to go back to Deep Water Creek, but 
you would have known also she had no fear 
of entering the harbour you and I are bound 
for also. The peace of God which the Master 
promised to give us was hers." 

The old man said no more. But I saw, 
even by the feeble glow of our swinging lamp, 
a bright sparkle on each of his rugged cheeks. 
He took my hand in both of his. The silent 
pressure, the wordless good-bye, will remain 
with me till my last call also comes. 

As the sound of his retreating oars grad- 
ually disappeared into the night, I found 
myself still standing in the hatchway. Surely 
for the humblest service done in His name 
the Master gives here and now the reward 
which is above all else worth while. 



XI 

" Brin " 

WE were a hundred miles from hos- 
pital on the west coast of the long 
promontory of north Newfound- 
land that lies between the two branches of 
the polar current. One branch sweeps the 
east coast, while the other, entering the 
Straits of Belle Isle, chills the waters of the 
gulf of St. Lawrence and materially affects 
the climate of eastern Canada. Its latitude, 
which is that of the south coast of England, 
entitles it to no small amount of sunshine, 
yet its mean temperature is that of northern 
Norway or southern Greenland. 

Our harbours remain frozen till late in 
May and the brilliant reflection of the April 
and May sunshine lends a colour to our faces 
like that of tanned leather boots. These 
months afford us a combination of germ- 
killing light and bracing cold that is equalled 
in few parts of the world. 

It was a fortnight since we had left hos- 
pital. As things had been quiet there, my 
147 



148 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR i 

new colleague had decided to accompany me 
in order that he might become familiar with 
the country which next winter he would have 
to travel alone. It was, however, time to be 
turning homeward and we were out giving 
our dogs an extra feed over night, prepara- 
tory to the additional call we intended to 
make on their capacities on the morrow, for 
we had decided to leave at daybreak. 

It takes all the attention of two men to feed 
a team of husky dogs, if you wish to make 
sure that they shall share even approximately 
equally. When possible we feed each dog 
separately. Here, however, we had only the 
open snow for their accommodation, and it 
was impossible to serve dinner without the 
assistance of our long whips. For not only is 
there a master dog who takes all he wants 
anyhow, but each single dog knows exactly 
which of the others he can bully. It doesn't 
in the least matter how good a piece of meat 
may fall to his fortune, if he sees another ap- 
parently with a better he will immediately fly 
at him. The result often is that before they 
have settled the dispute, both pieces have 
vanished, and only fresh assaults and batteries 
will save them from going supperless. The 
fact that naturally the blocks of meat are 
hard frozen and therefore take some time 



" BRIN" 149 

even for an Eskimo dog to dispose of safely, 
naturally prolongs the period of excitement. 

Indeed our minds were so occupied with 
our task that the approach of a large team 
of dogs from the north escaped our notice. 
Stimulated by the well-recognized signs of a 
meal, the new arrivals, turning deaf ears to 
the cries of the man who was driving them, 
and who was now clinging to the sledge with 
both hands for dear life, simply leapt into the 
middle of the fracas. Before a word could be 
said the komatik was capsized and the driver 
was sprawling beneath it, while the heaving, 
writhing, yelping masses of fur were enjoy- 
ing the one superior attraction to a meal — a 
good straight fight. They were quite regard- 
less of the fact that the champions of one side 
were still tied to their sledge, and were rapidly 
snarling themselves and everything else up 
in an utterly inextricable tangle. It went 
greatly against the grain to have to whip our 
dogs off, but under the circumstances there 
was no alternative. Worse still, it left the 
victors in possession of the supper, when our 
sympathies were entirely with our own gal- 
lant team, which, if left alone, would have 
beaten their opponents off their heads. 

The task was all the more galling as our 
dogs are not gifted with a retiring disposi- 



ISO DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

tion, and it took much more application of 
the whip than we cared to administer to per- 
suade them to leave the field and hand over 
their dinner, even to entertain strangers. 
Moreover, one of my trustiest dogs somehow 
hurt his knee and was lame for a week. The 
ruffianly Joe, their driver, even dared once 
during the evening to inform the crowd 
around the log fire that one of his pitiable 
curs had bitten it. He did not, however, in- 
sist on this point later. This irritating 
sequence of events had not materially helped 
us to appreciate the explanation for his un- 
timely arrival which Joe blurted out as soon as 
he had sufficiently recovered his equanimity. 

" They is wanting you in Island Harbour, 
doctor. They doesn't know what t' sickness 
be." 

" Oh ! That's it, is it ? Then you weren't 
running away from the police. How long 
since you left?" 

"Only two days, doctor. I got as far as 
the Green Ridge tilt first night." 

"Why, you came all around by the coast, 
didn't you?" 

"Only as far as Caplin Cove Tickle. 
None of us had ever been straight across the 
Cloudy Hills, and us heard t' Beaver Cove 
trappers wasn't in t' Big Mountain tilt t' 



'*BRIN" 151 

winter. So there be no track, and it's nigh 
impossible to find t' cut path through t' big 
drogues o' wood from there out here unless 
you know every inch of it." 

Now it couldn't be more than sixty or 
seventy miles across country to the place we 
wanted to reach, and it would be nearly 
twice that distance to go round. We could 
count on covering the former in a day if only 
we could follow the trail. But that was just 
where the rub came. If once you lost it, it 
would be an endless task getting a team of 
dogs through our dense stunted spruce forests, 
with their windfalls of ages which make them 
like one huge battle stockade with countless 
pitfalls hidden under light snow coverings 
between the logs, where you crawl over one 
only to fall incontinently into the next. We 
had had more than one experience of that 
kind before, and had to abandon our sledges 
and exhausted dogs while we struggled ahead 
on foot, footsore and frozen. 

It was a great dilemma. For not only did 
every sporting instinct within one cry out, 
"Have a fling at the cross country route," but 
success in the venture also meant reach- 
ing our desired haven a day sooner. 

Naturally it was the topic of the evening 
as soon as our pipes were lit, and just as 



152 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

naturally half our friends were on one side 
and half on the other. 

"What would you say, Malcolm?" I asked 
of our best but aged woodman. 

"Fm thinking I'll no advise you, doctor. 
I've been round, and I've been straight in 
my time, but I'm no saying I could find the 
way myself now. There've been no cutting 
done on t' line this ten years, and the young 
trees have grown that high that I'm doubting 
you'll not keep t' track." 

Uncle Silas 'lowed he'd come in with us 
as far as t' Underground Hole Tilt himself, 
and " you'se can see t' hanging marsh from 
there." But he didn't know from the Old Deer 
Tilt on, as " there's never been no business to 
take him out there from the coast." 

The odds were almost even on the route, 
and we had about decided to settle it in the 
way Captain Mose always adopted when he 
didn't know which direction to head his craft for 
seals. •' I just t'rows up my old cap," he said, 
" and if she comes down face up I mostly heads 
t' the eastward, and if not I goes down along." 

We had indeed just come to the point of 
getting the captain to go and search for his 
•' wisdom cap " when the crackling sound of 
footsteps on the crisp snow outside warned 
us of the approach of a newcomer. 



" BRIN'' 153 

The door was opened with the assurance 
of an old acquaintance, and a chorus of wel- 
come greeted the muffled figure that stopped 
to beat the snow ofi itself in the porch. 

" Harry, you'se just struck it right this 
time. Here's t' doctor wants to cross the 
country to-morrow. Where have you dropped 
from ? They said you was in after deer and 
would not be out for ten days." 

We found Harry had come in a hurry 
to get help from the village to bring out two 
stags he had killed, and as he had not " scaf- 
folded" them out of the reach of animals, he 
simply must go right back in the morning. 

He was a quiet man, and the vocabulary 
of which he could avail himself in the com- 
pany present was limited and soon exhausted. 
It was only after he had sucked in several 
deep draughts from his pipe, and was sitting 
in the corner almost hidden by the clouds of 
smoke he was blowing out, that he broke 
into the conversation again. 

" I'll tell you what I'll do, doctor," he sud- 
denly volunteered. " I won't see you left. If 
it is a bit of around I'll come with you as far 
as the big white marsh, and then if you'se 
don't get t'rough before dark you'll surely 
find one of the Gray Cove men's tilts." And 
I saw his keen black eyes fixed on mine as if 



154 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

the sudden inspiration had reHeved him of an 
intolerable burden. 

" A bit of a round ! It'll be twenty-five 
miles out of you'se line if it's a yard," broke 
in the man who would have to go in with 
him after the deer carcasses, and who had 
listened to the whole discussion from the 
background. " But I'm not saying as us 
can't do it and get home t' same night all 
the same. What do ye say, doctor ? How'U 
that suit ye ? " 

" A good deal better than relying on Uncle 
Mose's cap, Jake, Indeed, that settles it, and 
try we will whatever comes of it." 

It was unfortunate that my colleague and 
I had decided to leave our usual driver at 
home on this trip, for he had crossed this 
very route the year previous with the doctor 
who had been supplying for me. They had 
had the unusual opportunity of the company 
of the one man living, who years before had 
been engaged with a government survey 
party in driving a track across from water to 
water. When we left, we had intended to 
return by the well-worn coast trail, in which 
case a driver's room would have been better 
than his weight on the sledges. We had left 
him, moreover, our good team of dogs, as 
there were a number of logs to be hauled 




"HE WENT BY THE NAME OP BRIN" 



''BRIN'' 155 

home from the woods, more, indeed, than we 
could expect to handle before the going broke 
up. 

The result was that of all our last year's team 
we had only one dog with us, a yellowish 
brown fellow with queer black striped mark- 
ing somewhat like a Bengal tiger. They lent 
to his sinister face the suggestion that he 
was eternally grinning — an impression inten- 
sified by an odd way he had of turning up 
the corners of his mouth when he caught 
one's eye. He went by the name of " Brin." 
I had reared this dog myself and run him his 
second winter as my leader, though he was 
then little better than a pup. On several oc- 
casions he had displayed unusual instinct for 
direction. Very soon after his first promo- 
tion I had been compelled to run eighteen 
miles, mostly over sea ice, without seeing 
any intervening house, in a blizzard of snow 
and a head wind. It was quite impossible to 
do any steering, as the driving snow, with no 
windbreak, made seeing to windward simply 
out of the question. But the pup had proved 
his mettle by coming out without a hitch at 
the door of the house we wished to find, as it 
marked the spot where the shore trail left the 
crossneck of land. Thus, of all the caval- 
cade, he alone had ever seen the trail we 



156 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

were now proposing to take, and that only 
once. It had, however, been very bad weather 
all the way, and they had taken three days 
from land-wash to land-wash. No one could 
say, of course, how much Brin's memory could 
be counted on, but personally I was prepared 
to bank a good deal on it. 

An hour or so more was spent in discuss- 
ing the way, and indeed I traced out a rough 
map of the trail according to Harry's ideas 
of it. Beginning from our present position 
I drew in ponds, barrens, marshes, drogues, 
as he called them out, and arranged them in 
order as he said the road led next to the right 
or left. It was a weird-looking picture when 
we finished it, the lines resembling rather the 
intricacies of an infant's scribbling than a 
sailor's course from port to port. When, 
however, it had been doctored by every suc- 
cessive member of the conclave, and the final 
decisions all averaged and inked in black— 
for want of an eraser — to hide the earlier 
efforts, the chart had at least the merit of 
being picturesque and not lacking in de- 
tail. 

As soon as it had received the final fiat, 
" it's as good as us can do," the company be- 
gan to break up, and we lost no time in turn- 
ing in, as we would have to be on foot before 



"BRIN" 157 

daylight if we hoped to " reach over " before 
dark. 

But there was still one more thing to be 
settled. Mark Perrault, well known for his ex- 
cellent dogs, didn't want to be left out in the 
deal. Accordingly he came round to where 
I sat and whispered, "I was going to get rid 
of old Snowball some time, doctor, though 
he's one of the best still on hard travel. I 
thought maybe as you'se got one of you'se 
dogs badly mauled you might care to take 
him along with you. It's nothing but what 
us ought to do," he protested, as I insisted 
that he would need Snowball himself for get- 
ting out his fire-wood. "But you'll have to 
keep an eye that he doesn't give you the slip, 
doctor. He'd come back home a hundred 
miles if you gave him a chance, anyhow. 
Yes, if you packed him and sent him by sea 
in a nailed-up box." 

It was no use saying any more, and the 
grip of the good fellow's hand as I thanked 
him and said "good-night " was such a night- 
cap as a king might seek in vain. 

The sky was overcast and it was cold and 
still dark as we collected our dogs next morn- 
ing for the long run across country. But 
they were well trained to respond to our call, 
and though hidden away in every conceiva- 



158 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

ble corner, or under houses, or often buried 
in the snow, they were soon rubbing their 
noses against our hands. 

Mark Perrault was up before us, and while 
we " boiled the kettle " he kept watch over 
the unlucky Snowball, against whose intro- 
duction into their company our own darlings 
were breathing out threatenings and slaughter. 
For his better protection Snowball was har- 
nessed nearest the sleigh, that we might the 
more readily watch over his safety. 

Harry and his comrade with a large team 
of their own that knew that section of the 
country like a book, made the running all 
morning, and as we were climbing most of 
the time it was just as well for our teams that 
we had only one man on each sledge. Of 
course we had had to bring our medical 
stores and reserve food supplies with us. Be- 
fore leaving every man who knew anything of 
the route had given us a last word as to the 
best way to take *' Aunt Sally's Grove," and 
what point to steer for when we came out on 
" Five Mile Pond," etc., etc. All of this would 
have been very useful information if only any 
one of the thousand lakes and groves of trees 
had been labelled in any way. 

Nothing of any particular interest trans- 
pired till we broke out from the woods about 



''BRIN" 159 

ten in the morning by the big white marsh. 
Indeed nothing well could, for the path was 
broken for us by our pilots. However, here 
they had to leave us, and we halted under 
some large spruce trees to boil a " mug of 
tea," while we received our final instructions. 
" It was all easy enough if you know'd it," 
was the tenor of Harry's last words, with 
which sentiment I found it easiest to 
agree. 

The main thing that interested me, how- 
ever, while he was talking, was the fact that 
there wasn't a trace of any kind of mark on 
the virgin face of the Hanging Marsh. If I 
had to find my own way to where to leave it 
through the surrounding trees, I should cer- 
tainly have had to go all round the edge, and 
then perhaps miss it after all. For I had no- 
ticed that even the blazes on the trees near 
the houses which were far more numerous and 
fresher than any we could hope to find for many 
miles to come, were so obscured by glitter, 
that is ice frozen on the tree stems, that had 
we been without our pilots we should have 
lost our way a dozen times already. As we 
sat discussing over a cup of hot tea and a 
pork bun, that most delectable invention as 
it won't freeze however cold the day may be, 
we dragged out the map which we had made 



i6o DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

the night before, and found a new merit to 
it — a powerful sense of humour. 

Having pointed out that the direction in 
which we must steer across the marsh was 
towards a tail spruce that towered up in soli- 
tary state above the rest of the trees, our 
good-natured guides returned on their tracks. 
It was already obvious to both of us doctors 
that we had not the slightest chance of find- 
ing the trail. Our only assets were our 
pocket compasses giving us the general direc- 
tion, our axes to clear a path when we should 
get stogged, and a hopeful disposition which 
never spoiled for troubles till they came along 
— and Brin. 

Whether he knew his importance or not at 
the moment I never could tell. But a light 
seemed to dance in his eyes like the demons 
on Feathertop's magic pipe when he pulled 
at it — and his queer face assumed a veritable 
Mephistophelian aspect as he strutted about 
at the end of his long leading trace. I re- 
member he kept looking back and grinning 
at us as he waited for the word " go." 

"Don't say a word," shouted my chum 
from the sledge behind. " Let's see if he'd 
head right across the marsh anyhow." 

" All right," I called back," mum's the word 
: — go ! " And we simultaneously cut the lines 



''BRIN" i6i 

holding the sledges back to keep the excited 
dogs from running away before we were ready. 

Prosaic as it may seem to others it was a 
moment of real excitement to us when Brin 
led off at a stretch gallop in an absolute line 
for the tall lone spruce. As we whisked by 
it I can almost swear he looked back at me 
and winked, and although twelve fathoms 
away I fancied I caught an unearthly chuckle 
from him. 

The snow surface on these highlands was 
splendid and the dogs were in a mood to go. 
So we just "sat tight" and let them. For 
the trail led now through wooded country 
and we were Indians enough from years' 
experience to notice that we were keep- 
ing to the old cut path, in spite of having to 
circumvent many snags in it. Shortly, how- 
ever, we struck more open country, and as 
the trees were now scattered like those in an 
orchard the path might have been anywhere. 
We could only watch the dog, who though 
he had slackened somewhat was still trotting 
along merrily, and as unconcerned as if he 
hadn't yet discovered there was any problem 
existent. Somewhere about ten miles from 
the marsh in just such a setting we had 
marked on our map was a forked juniper tree 
standing by itself in the middle of a long 



i62 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

lead. The top boughs had been stripped 
from it and the skull and antlers of old 
caribou fixed in the cleft. 

The utter inaccuracy of the map had led 
me to forget this landmark, and I was more 
than surprised to hear my chum suddenly 
shout out, " There she is ! " 

" There's what ? " 

" Why, the skull in the tree," he responded. 

As we use no reins in order to guide the 
dogs, we rely entirely on our voices to swing 
them to the right or left. A good leader 
obeys instinctively even at top speed without 
apparently otherwise taking notice. But on 
this occasion we both thought Brin looked 
around and laughed. But even if he didn't, 
we did, for our spirits went up with a bound 
as we realized we were still all right and an- 
other ten miles lay behind us. 

A little later we passed the top ridge of 
the Cloudy Hills, where the going was good, 
because there were no longer even scrub 
trees to worry us. Moreover, there could be 
no doubt of the right direction as there was 
only one gap through which we could well 

go- 

From the outlet of the gorge we should 

have the sea some twenty miles below us. 

But the shadows of evening were already 



" BRW 163 

drawn too close and the sky was still over- 
cast. There seemed to lie between us and 
our goal nothing but endless miles of rolling 
forest. It appeared to be mere folly to ex- 
pect to get through before morning. Yet if 
we were going to camp at all, now was the 
time to outspan and get a shelter built while 
we could see. 

How much longer could we trust Brin? 
He had swung off almost at right angles after 
emerging from the pass, and was now guid- 
ing his followers along the upper edge of the 
woods. It seemed at last as if he were seek- 
ing something and was uncertain where to 
enter. But he showed no doubt about what 
to do a minute later, for without even slack- 
ening speed he dashed into the forest, and I 
looked back and caught the eye of my col- 
league as I saw he also had spotted a half- 
obliterated blaze on the trunk of a birch to 
the side of us. Down, down, down, we went, 
the cut path every now and again obscured 
by growing saplings or blocked by wind- 
falls which had to be carefully negotiated. 
But they counted for nothing beside the fact 
that every minute was shortening the dis- 
tance and we were obviously still on the track. 

Time passes quickly when one is steering 
a loaded komatik down through woods. You 



i64 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

want all your skill and strength to avoid 
stumps and snags. Every now and again, 
even with the best of teams, some dog will 
turn the wrong side of an obstruction, and 
the whole team are suddenly brought up "all 
standing." As a rule it is not a very long 
matter to haul back the prodigal, and sling 
him round after the others, though when he 
finds he is being dragged back he hauls for 
all he is worth, thinking he is going to get 
whipped. But the presence of Snowball, a 
stranger in the team, added a very definite 
new element of trouble. For a sudden check 
would bring the dogs together, and they 
seemed invariably to associate him with the 
halt which they so greatly resented. The un- 
fortunate Snowball was of course forced to 
defend himself, and the process of separating 
the contestants often enough drove several 
more dogs around tree trunks, so that the 
fracas had to end by clearing them all out 
and making an entirely new start. 

At the foot of the first range the valley 
contained a long lake onto which we ran out 
squarely at right angles. Facing us was a 
steep bluff, and below the lake seemed to end 
in a narrow defile through which we guessed 
the river escaped, and towards which we of 
course expected to turn. But no such notion 



"BRIN'* 165 

apparently entered Brin's head. He made 
exactly for the opposite direction and then 
crossing a narrow portion of the lake, started 
to climb the hill in front of us. The excel- 
lent engineering of this move only became 
apparent when after a few moments we were 
once more through a pass and discovered 
that we were at the head of a second valley 
that led in precisely the opposite direction. 
There were no marks of any kind whatever 
that were visible, and it was now a long 
while since we had seen any indications that 
we were following a trail. We had hoped 
before this at least to see racquet marks of 
hunters from the opposite coast, but nothing 
of that kind either was discernible. How- 
ever, Brin continued to trot on without a 
pause down the sloping hillside and there 
was nothing for us to do but "sit tight " and 
look on. 

As we swung round a big drift of snow, 
presumably over an unusually large boulder, 
a very fresh fox track ran directly down the 
hill. Without once looking back Brin jumped 
right into it, his unquestioning comrades fol- 
lowing him only too gladly. The pace at 
once increased, and it seemed as if we were 
being made mere fools of, while the dogs had 
a good time hunting. It was mighty hard 



i66 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

not to " butt in " and tell a " mere dog " 
which way to go. But then we didn't know 
which way we did want to go. I looked 
round, however, to see whether my comrade 
had noticed the turn of events. " It's a case 
of walking by faith, I reckon. Do you sup- 
pose Brin knows what he's after?" The 
sound of his name evidently apprized the dog 
that we were discussing him, for even at the 
pace at which we were now going, he found 
time to fling his impish head around and 
fairly grin in our faces. 

I never would have believed that an 
ordinary fox trail could worry any man so 
much. But when we were still following that 
unsociable beast's footsteps after a full mile 
had elapsed, it became almost impossible not 
to interfere. For the likelihood that a fox 
was really heading for the village we were 
seeking seemed absurd. All of a sudden this 
deduction was apparently proven correct be- 
yond the possibility of doubt, for we crossed 
the tracks of a man's snow racquets at right 
angles to our path. It was too much for 
any one, and so we halted the dogs, and 
donning our own racquets, followed the marks 
each way to see if they gave any clue as to 
how to proceed. Luckily for us we soon 
found signs that the man was hunting, for 



" BRIN" 167 

his trail doubled on itself twice, and we knew 
he at least was not going in or out of the 
country. 

"What's the best thing to do, John? 
There's still time to make a camp before 
dark. That fiend of a dog seems cock-sure 
of his way. But I don't know if the devil 
isn't in the beast. Look at his face. He 
looks possessed, if ever a dog did." 

Brin was sitting bolt upright on his 
haunches and was staring directly at us — for 
all the world as if he understood exactly what 
we were saying. As he caught my eye he 
put his head on one side and actually poked 
out his tongue. It was surely quite un- 
necessary to begin to pant just at that mo- 
ment. But he maintained so inscrutable a 
mien, without even a blink, that though I half 
unconsciously picked up my whip as if to 
teach him to " quit fooling " I couldn't find 
heart to give him a flick. It was getting late 
and I felt we really ought to do something at 
once. 

" What do you say to blindfolding him ? 
Perhaps he'll leave this miserable fox track," 
I suggested. 

" I'm for giving him another chance," was 
the trustful reply, which almost made me 
think my chum also was laughing at me. 



i68 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

"It seems rather Sunday-school bookish, 
but if you're in earnest, * Barkis is willing,' " 
and I threw myself onto the sledge with a 
" hist" to the dogs to go just where they jolly 
well liked. Bothered if they didn't again 
start off at a trot along that unspeakable 
fox track. It was with unfeigned gratitude 
that at last as we came out onto the bed of 
the river, the fox tracks disappeared into the 
willows opposite — for the animal himself was 
certainly not very far distant. It was a big 
credential on the right side to see the team 
leave it. 

It was for a time a real relief that we pro- 
ceeded to follow the river. The low banks 
had allowed the wind to blow the snow away 
and the resulting good ice surface, together 
with the drop of the river, made it easy to 
cover the miles at our leisure. Moreover, we 
knew the river must lead to the sea some 
time. Our hopes rose so high that we posi- 
tively took the time to warm up the kettle, 
and get a second " mug of tea " for the day. 
When, however, we opened the tin of pork 
and beans which we had boiled with the 
water, we realized we were not as confidant 
as we thought. For though the under layer 
was melted, the centre was still a variety of 
ice-cream that was new to us. Moreover, 



" BRW 169 

when we started, the valley narrowed, and 
the river bed was blocked with snow with 
every here and there great chasms that re- 
vealed the rushing water beneath. Worse 
still, the river ended abruptly in a huge lake 
with at least one large island in it. Nor was 
there the faintest indication now as to whether 
we should turn to the north, south, east or 
west. 

It seemed possible, however, to eliminate 
the east, because we could see across the 
lake a high range of hills rising. Yet with- 
out hesitation Brin headed straight for them. 
Our only comfort was that there were trees 
on the sides of them among which we could 
at least camp, though it was already darker 
than we cared about. 

On — on — on — till at last we came to the 
woods flanking the lake. The dogs instantly 
went straight into the forest, and in half a 
minute were on opposite sides of a dozen 
trees, as if a comb had been pushed into hair. 

** That's the end of it, John. The sooner 
we get to work and make a shelter for the 
night the better." And having unlashed my 
axe, I whipped out my snow-shoes and 
started to find a dry tree to light the fire 
with. 

John stood ruefully looking at the dogs. 



\^o DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

Apparently, he had banked more on Brin 
than I had, and he said afterwards he felt as 
if the bottom had fallen out of his faith in 
everything. The dogs, glad of a rest, lay 
down where they were and started chewing 
the icicles out of their fur. Brin, at the end 
of his longer trace which was stretched to its 
full length, was nearly hidden by bushes, but 
I could see he was standing up and looking 
back as he did when the team slacked and he 
was accustomed to come back and snap at 
them. His odd manner influenced me 
enough to start off in his direction after I 
had turned over the komatik. To my 
amazement I found he was standing in a 
well cut path which ran at an acute angle up 
the side of the hill. He had tried a short 
cut into it about ten yards before it opened 
onto the lake. 

There was no trouble after this. Once 
over the hill we struck the wood path of 
the Gray Cove men and by 8 P. M. had 
brought up outside my patient's house. We 
were able to tell him "what t' sickness 
was " and also to be of some little service in 
saving him pain and trouble. 

Before turning in I went out to see what 
the night was and to make sure that Snow- 
ball was safely fastened up. For I knew he 



"BRIN'' 171 

would start directly back the moment he got 
the chance. Everything was all right, how- 
ever, and the tired dogs were stowed away 
somewhere asleep. My hand was on the 
latch of the cottage door as I was about to 
reenter so as to turn in myself, when some- 
thing warm and furry rubbed gently against 
my leg. By the light that streamed out of 
the open door I found myself looking right 
down into Brin's eyes. They were asking in 
as plain English as could be written, " How 
did I please you to-day, master?" I couldn't 
help putting my arms around his neck and 
hugging him. Then we both went off to 
our beds the happier for it. 

Three days later we reached home, and 
three days more we kept Snowball penned 
in and fed even more generously than the 
other dogs. The seventh day after he had 
left his home we ventured to let him out. 

Mark Perrault still sticks to it that Snow- 
ball reached home on the seventh evening 
after we left. 



XII 

Rube Marvin s Confession 

IT was the very j oiliest part of the whole 
year. Snow enough had fallen at Christ- 
mas time to fill up every inequality in 
the countryside, chock to the brim. All the 
scrub woods and bushes had disappeared, 
and every troublesome snag had long ago 
sunk out of sight under the generous white 
mantle of winter. A sudden thaw for a single 
night late in January had put a perfect sur- 
face on the snow which was already well 
packed down by nor' westerly gales. 

We had been enjoying a long three days' 
drive with our dogs through the finest part 
of the country, over the high white hills, 
crossing the frozen bays on the ice from one 
wooded island to another, threading our way 
along the paths cut through the spruce forests, 
and sweeping down the courses of rivers at 
a pace that made it no easy matter to avoid 
the unfrozen rattles and rapids, as the dogs 
tore along the trail like a pack of hounds in 
172 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 173 

full view of their quarry, with nothing in the 
way to stop them. 

Night had overtaken us at the head of a 
beautiful bay where our lumber mill is sit- 
uated, and the hard physical exercise of the 
journey had prepared us to enjoy to the full 
the generous hospitality of the manager's 
house, which was freely extended both to our- 
selves and our trusty dogs. 

The perfectly glorious sunshine which had 
continued steadily day after day did not yet 
fail us, and the simple fare at our humble 
hospice seemed sweeter with our rude vitality 
than any feast on earth. 

" Have they got the framipg of the new 
schooner finished yet, Walter?" I inquired 
as we sat at breakfast. 

" It's time they had," he answered, " see- 
ing they had all the knees and timbers ready 
before Christmas, and the keel and dead- 
wood laid by New Year. I reckon there 
must be something wrong with Rube Marvin. 
He don't seem to mind if he does or doesn't 
this three weeks gone — and the boys can't 
get ahead without he's there to show them 
what to do." 

" What can be wrong with Rube ? I should 
think he had less right to worry than any 
man in the bay. He ought to make quite a 



174 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

nice sum out of building the vessel. He isn't 
ill, is he?" 

" He says he isn't anyhow, though his wife 
says he eats next to nothing, and scarcely 
sleeps any at nights. Jake Rumford says he 
thinks it's a touch o' the moon. They had 
worked a bit by moonlight to get all the 
knees out before the snow fell." 

" What do you think of it yourself, Walter ? 
It will be a bad business if we can't launch her 
before the men have to leave for the fishery." 

" I can't say, doctor. He just seems like 
a man a mile away all the time, as if he was 
too far off to take notice of any one." 

" Let's go and look at her anyhow, and 
perhaps I can help Rube some way." 

So we donned our snow-shoes and crossed 
over to the sheltered cove on the shore of 
which the great white frame of the new 
schooner was silhouetted against the dark 
green background of the forest. 

"Morning, Jake," I shouted to a man 
standing away up on one of the deck beams, 
who had halted, axe in hand, to make out 
who was approaching. " Good-morning. 
Where's Rube this morning?" 

" Morning," he answered. *' Morning. 
Where's Rube? Why, he was up here a sec- 
ond ago. Perhaps he's in the workshed 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 175 

there — though us generally works out here 
fine days." 

Following his directions, I turned into the 
shed, and sure enough, there was Rube 
standing sheepishly by the bench, only too 
obviously having gone in to avoid us. 

" Good-morning, Rube. You're making a 
fine job of it." 

" I'm glad you think so, doctor," he re- 
plied. ** I suppose I'm doing my best." 

There was such an utter absence of the 
usual twinkle about his eyes and the happy 
ring in his voice, and such a general tone of 
melancholy about him, that I couldn't sup- 
press the retort — *' I can't think you are doing 
anything of the kind to look at you. Rube. 
What's the matter ? Not going to be hung, 
are you?" 

Rube jumped as if he really feared such a 
thing, but as I could get nothing further out 
of him I went out and chatted with the rest 
of the men about the boat. I was at a loss 
to know how I could help him, for he did not 
seem anxious to speak of his trouble, though 
I knew well enough our foreman had some- 
thing on his mind. 

We had organized a big rabbit drive for 
Saturday afternoon, and a huge bonfire to be 
held in the woods in the evening, around 



176 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

which we were all to gather and partake of a 
feast in the open, prepared for all comers. 
Rube was crazy about hunting, and every 
one fully expected him to direct the shooters. 
But no Rube put in an appearance, and to 
me his noticeable absence cast quite a gloom 
over the proceedings. We had a fine tale of 
** bunnies " by evening, and as jokes were 
cracked and yarns told around the blazing 
log fire under the greenwood trees, hot cocoa 
and hot toasted pork cakes were passed 
around. Every one seemed just as jolly as 
sandhoppers. The frolic closed with singing, 
the voices of the men echoing through the 
silent forest. But for my part, my thoughts 
were all the time in Rube Marvin's cot- 
tage. 

After Sunday evening service, it is often 
our custom to gather such of the men as care 
to drop in and have some singing — and the 
following night there was quite an assem- 
blage. As the men were dispersing and we 
were saying good-night, one of them touched 
me on the shoulder and said : 

" Can I have a few words with you, doctor, 
quite in private? " 

"Certainly you can," I answered. "I'll 
get my racquets, and we'll be able to walk off 
the path. We'll be more alone then." 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 177 

" Doctor," he began, ** if you tells anything 
you knows is there anything in it for you ? " 

" What on earth do you mean ? " 

" I means, doctor, you's a magistrate, 
isn't you ? And if a fellow tells of something 
done wrong, will them pay him anything for 
it?" 

I had walked to windward, as the men say, 
while we were talking, and now I stopped 
suddenly and looked straight in the face of 
my companion. There I could see written 
in unmistakable language the expression of 
greed — so rare among our men, and so hate- 
ful, that I shuddered. 

He was pawing the snow uneasily now 
with one foot, and his eyes fell before my 
gaze. 

"Jacob," I said, "if you know of a crime 
and conceal it, you are guilty of it yourself 
in man's sight ; and if you sell your guilty 
knowledge merely for private gain, you are 
doubly guilty in the sight of God — and of 
all good men, too. Yes, you can sell your 
soul and your honour, too, if you want to ; 
there are plenty of buyers ; but I won't let 
you do it without thinking of it again. 
Good-bye. I'm going back to the house." 
And I left him standing there motionless 
where he was, till I had turned the corner 



178 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

of the wood path, and he was no longer in 
sight. 

Nothing further happened in the matter 
next day, and I tramped around the village 
from house to house as my business called 
me, wondering if I should hear more of the 
affair of the previous night. 

The manager of ^the mill had built on to 
his house what he was pleased to call " the 
prophet's chamber," and in this I was wont 
to close the day alone, making up my note- 
books and finishing the day's round. The 
light shining through the windows apprised 
the people of the fact that I was in, and it 
was by no means unusual for some of them 
to avail themselves of the opportunity to 
come and speak about anything that might 
be troubling them. 

I was glad that no one had come this 
evening, as I had so many things to occupy 
my mind, and I was just about to put out 
the light and " turn in," when a timid knock 
broke the silence, and in response to my in- 
vitation to come in, the door opened and the 
figure of my informant of the previous even- 
ing stood in the doorway. 

" Shut the door, Jake, and sit down. I'm 
quite alone. No. No. Shake hands. You 
don't know how glad I am you've come out 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 179 

on top. Thank God for it, if ever you did in 
your life for anything." 

He realized at once that I knew he had 
won out, for he looked me straight in the 
face and the beauty of a right purpose beamed 
out of his eyes so that to me it made the poor 
little room in which we sat better than a 
conqueror's palace. Something seemed to 
be choking the throats of both of us, as we 
just looked at one another in silence. It was 
I who found voice first. 

" Let's have it, Jake. God be praised, 
there's nothing we can't get right when He's 
behind us, as I'm sure He is now." 

" Doctor," he began, " it's about Rube 
Marvin. I knows why he isn't hisself these 
days. He done a wrong thing two years 
ago, doctor, and he can't keep it to hisself no 
longer. He got going to prayers again last 
fall, and t' preacher at Christmas time seemed 
to know just what was wrong with all o' us. 
Leastways them things he preached to we 
about, just got hold. I've been to see Rube 
since last night, and he wants to come and 
tell you all about it, only he can't bring hisself 
to do it." 

"Then you have nothing to say yourself?" 

" No, doctor, nothing, unless you or Rube 
wants me to." 



i8o DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

"It's best that way. Let Rube alone, 
and let whatever he does come from him- 
self and not from us. It will help him after- 
wards." 

As I started out on my rounds next morn- 
ing I took occasion to pass the new schooner 
and sing out a greeting to the men. 

" All well, I hope, Esau. You'll be ready 
for the top side planking soon." 

" Ready now," he replied cheerily, " but 
we can't begin without Rube." 

" Hasn't Rube shown up this fine morn- 
ing?" 

" Not a sign o' him, doctor. I guess you'll 
have to fix him up with a dose o' sorts. His 
nose has been out o' joint this three weeks." 

" I'll call round and see if I can set it, 
Esau. But I'm thinking the cure may take 
longer than we expect. Meanwhile, get 
ahead all you can." And I swung off in the 
direction of Rube's cottage. 

As I struck up the pathway from the side 
of the inlet — I had been obliged to walk 
on the sea ice owing to the thick trees 
along the land- wash — I heard the sound of 
children's voices, and found Rube's three 
little ones simply revelling in the crisp, dry 
snow and the bright sunshine streaming 
through the trees. 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION i8i 

" Daddy dorn out," the oldest volunteered 
as she saw me heading for the front door. 

" Where has he gone, dearie ? " 

" He's dorn in the trees ever so long." 

I expected as much and went on into the 
house to chat with his wife as an explanation 
for my morning call. 

As I tramped back along the edge of the 
woods and was nearing the Devil's Head- 
land, I heard the crackling of bushes, and 
suddenly the tall figure of Rube strode out 
on his snow racquets into the trail ahead of 
me. 

As I looked into his eyes, I could not help 
smiling at the transparency of these simple 
men. It was quite superfluous for him to 
begin without any other word of introduc- 
tion — "I wants to tell you something, doc- 
tor. I wants you to send me to prison for 
it." 

"There's no time like the present, Rube. 
If you've got anything on your mind the 
sooner you out with it the better for you." 

" It's about the Silver King, doctor, what 
was lost three years ago come September." 

There was a long pause during which 
neither of us spoke. Rube was fighting for 
his life ; I silent, lest I should rob him of the 
help which I knew would come to him if he 



1 82 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

won out alone. It was very cold, and the 
crisp crackle of the snow, as we strode along 
on our racquets, was for a full ten minutes the 
only accompaniment to the laboured breath- 
ing of my companion, in whom a contest was 
raging, ten times as exacting as any physical 
struggle. 

Suddenly he stepped ahead, and facing 
around, stopped me dead in the path. 

" I done it ! " he exclaimed almost fiercely. 
" I hadn't nothing for t' winter, and Downer 
promised if I did it, he'd give us all t' back 
debts, and a winter's diet for all o' we as well. 
He come three times afore I gived in. He 
were sailing for home t' next day, and 
threatened he'd take every bit o' grub away 
with him — and he would, too. He knowed 
what us had, and that us would be hungry 
before Christmas, to say nothing o' no butter 
for e'er a one o' us, and ne'er a tin o' milk 
for t' baby. And Mary was sick too, then, as 
you knows, doctor, and " 

And the great strong man turned away 
from me, and burying his face in his hands 
stood there with his broad shoulders heaving, 
sobbing like a child. 

More than once it has been my lot as a 
surgeon to see a man learn that the trouble 
of which he had come to know the nature 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 183 

spelled for him inevitable death — and to see 
his courage waver, and fail him at the 
thought of it. I have had to break to a 
loving wife and fond mother the news that 
her protector and breadwinner would never 
come back again till the sea gives up its 
dead. But this experience was new to me, 
and somehow hit me harder. Indeed a lump 
rose in my throat, and I wished with all my 
heart I might have been spared this expe- 
rience. 

" Rube," I broke in at last, " the best way 
is to play the man now, and regardless of 
what it costs, get this matter put right. Let's 
go to the mill, and you shall give me the 
whole story on oath. We'll have it properly 
witnessed, and then we'll send it off for good 
or ill to the chief of police in St. John's. If 
the worst comes to the worst, there are plenty 
of us who would just love to see that Mary 
and the kids want for nothing while you're 
away. Come along right away." I put 
my arm in his, and we swung off at a pace I 
haven't tried to equal since. We seemed 
scarcely to touch the snow now, though only 
a minute ago it had clogged our footsteps 
like so much glue. 

When at last we stopped at the lintel of the 
" prophet's chamber " there was a flush on 



i84 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

our cheeks and a throb in our pulses rather 
like that of boys working off superfluous 
vitality than of a magistrate and his criminal 
looking for punishment. 

" I think we had better have Walter for a 
witness. It's wiser, seeing he employs the 
men, that he should know the whole story 
from the beginning," I said. " Who would 
you like for a second? It's better to have 
two." 

For a minute he answered nothing, as if 
he were thinking things over carefully, and 
then he said suddenly, " Jake Rumford." 

It was a strange party that gathered round 
the tea table that night. The two men to 
whom I had sent word came straight in from 
their work, and I had dispatched a message 
to his wife that I was keeping Rube for 
supper. 

The following is the confession, taken and 
abridged from the long tale Rube told me : 

" It was on Sunday evening, September 
14, 19 — . Captain Adam Downer came to 
my house after evening prayers and said he 
were going to sail from this place after mid- 
night for the winter. He asked me if I had 
changed my mind, and would I help him to 
scuttle his schooner, the Silver King, and 
promised if I would do as he told me there 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 185 

would be no more said about it, as o' course he 
wouldn't and t' skipper didn't know nothing 
about it. He said it would only be t' skipper 
what would have to swear to the protest for 
t' insurance. He'd never know how 'twas 
done, and so he'd never be found out, and 
there' d be no need for me to get into trouble 
swearing to lies. I remembered then they'd 
been loading her with rocks the best part o* 
Friday and Saturday, and my Jimmie had 
said, * They's taking in a fine lot o' ballast.' 
Downer said he'd give we all our old back 
debts, and a winter's diet besides for me and 
t' family out of what he'd landed. He said 
t' skipper didn't know, but he'd emptied every 
box aboard, and there were nothing now 
aboard for trading except old packing cases 
and rocks. 

" ' Come, Rube,' he says, * don't be a 
coward. There's nothing to it. It's better 
than going hungry. You don't want t' 
kids to starve, do you ? ' Then he got up 
and took his hat and said, ' Well, I must be 
off and get some one else, if you's going to 
stand in your own light. I thought you had 
more spunk.' And then it came in my mind 
that it had to be done now, and some one 'd 
surely do it, so them insurance folk would be 
no worse off if I done it than any one else, 



i86 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

and why not Mary and my kids have t' grub 
as well as t' next man ? And so I said, ' Well 
here goes.' God forgive me. And Downer 
says, 'That's right, Rube, I always thought 
you was no milksop. Just get your auger 
and come down along o' me.' 

" We went on board, unknown to any one, 
and into the forecastle, where he had taken the 
ballast deck up. He lit a candle and showed 
me where to bore some holes in the planking, 
and I bored about a dozen, till there were 
only a shell left on the outside. Then us put 
back t' planking and roused all hands to get 
the anchor. 

" It were a lovely fine night in harbour ; 
there were no wind, and to get outside t' 
heads us had to tow the old Silver King in 
t' dory. Downer kept saying, 'There'll be 
lots o' wind outside, boys. Give her t' wood- 
sails.' 

"It were pitch dark and us couldn't see 
hardly what was happening, but us found a 
nasty cross lop running what made it terrible 
hard rowing ; then jest as we was getting 
tired of it, something seemed all of a sudden 
to loom up under our lea, and us knowed 
we'd drifted with the southern tide in under 
the White Bear Cliffs. You knows them 
cliffs, doctor, and you knows what them is. 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 187 

Pull as us liked us couldn't even keep her 
head off shore. The skipper he was cursing 
Downer up and down deck for being such a 

fool for coming out on a night like this, 

and swearing he'd lose him every cent of 
insurance if ever he lived to get alongside a 
magistrate. 

" Meanwhile the roll of the sea on the 
rocks was making a cruel noise and us 
could see the white of the breakers as they 
rose against the cliffs. Of course t' skipper 
never looks to leave t' deck, but even now 
the Silver King were beginning to roll heavy 
in the back-bound from the rocks. Us could 
hear him cursing Downer and telling he to 
get over in the boat and help save t' ship. 
But Downer were far too afeared to do any- 
thing, and at last t' skipper shouted to us 
he'd come in t' boat and do it himself, and 
give we a hand. 

"As us come along for him the schooner 
'd lift on t' swell as it rushed in on the 
cliffs, and the back-bound would take her 
and nigh roll her on her beam ends. 
Downer were praying hard for God to save 
her, for he were a pious man most times, but 
he had no stomach for rough water, and he'd 
'a' been drowned sure if the Silver King had 
struck. Yet I dunno, but I reckon Downer's 



i88 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

prayers were answered somehow. For what 
we couldn't do for she, t' old schooner done 
all of a sudden for herself, and she come 
walking off again after we'd scraped along 
by the Devil's Headland as if she'd just been 
playing wi' we afore. 

" There were a hatful o' wind now and t' 
schooner were slipping along well. Downer 
had said he'd take the watch forward, while 
t' skipper steered and us got a nap after 
t' night's work. 

" It must have been just about coming day- 
light, though it seemed as if us had only just 
turned in, when some one touched me on 
the shoulder quiet-like, and I saw Downer 
leaning over me. 

" * It's all ready now. Rube,' he said ; * us is 
in near about to Roaring Meg wi' a fair 
wind in for Frenchman's Light. T' skipper's 
away aft at t' helm, and I've got the two half 
hundred weights way out along her bowsprit, 
and a line fast. I'm a-going to jerk 'em off 
so they'll hit her bow hard, and then I shall 
shout to the skipper for striking a piece of 
ice. You go at once and push out the rest 
o' them broken holes forward, and then I'll 
call to you to know if there's any harm done. 
You'll just shout out, " She's stove in forward 
and sinking," and then you'll run and tell the 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 189 

skipper she's started a couple o' butts for- 
ward. Only give her time to get down by 
the head a bit before he can come and see 
for hisself.' 

" I was more than half minded then and 
there to up and swear at him for a devil 
that he was. 'Deed Downer saw plain 
enough I was nearly ready to go back on 
my word, and he just hissed into my ear, 
'There's the holes that you bored in her 
now, Rube. If you goes back on me now I 
swear to God I'll have you in jail for try- 
ing to sink my ship. And I guess they'll 
listen to me, for I've got your bit what 
fits them holes stowed away feared I might 
want it.' 

" If I'd had a gun, I believe I'd 'a' shot him 
then and there, for I seed I'd been fairly 
trapped. Then I began to think o' home 
and I sort o' half give way. I reckon 
Downer must 'a' seen that, for he says, 
'What'll your woman do, and you in jail 
all winter, and she nothing in the house?' 
You remembers Levi's three kids, doctor, 
don't you, what all died that winter he were 
in trouble for breaking into a vessel ? Well 
then Downer went on calling me a coward, 
and saying I was false to my word. ' Do you 
think they'll take your word or mine?' he 



I90 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

said, till I just got up and knocked out 
the holes afore he was up the companion 
ladder. 

"In a minute or two there were a huge 
crash agin her bow and I heard the skipper call 
out, 'What's that?* 'You've struck a pan 
o' ice,' shouted Downer, * and I reckon you've 
stove in a plank. I'll rouse t' hands.' 
With that he jumped below, and seeing the 
water was already up to the flooring forrard 
and well above t' auger holes, he rushes up 
hisself and shouts, * She's a-sinkin'. Get a 
boat out and let us save what we can.' The 
old skipper knew Downer for a coward and 
come forrard and peered over the fore-hatch 
hisself, and sees me with a hurricane lantern, 
peering round. * Is it really bad with her, 
Rube? I wouldn't believe that ole vermin 
if he swore by all the saints, good and bad.' 
'Skipper,' I says, 't' boards is afloat already 
as you can see, and there's three feet o' water 
over t' leak. There's no man living able to 
save her unless t' pumps does.' ' Get up at 

'em, ye ! ' he replied. ' And Dick, too. 

I guess I'll stay and see if I can do anything 
below here myself.' And down he comes 
just as if he suspected something. 

" I was glad enough to slink off up the nor'- 
west passage. Dick mounted t' pump handle 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 191 

in less time than I cared about, and began 
pumping hard. I were afraid he might gain 
enough on t' water to give the ol' man be- 
low a chance to learn the real truth. But 
pump as hard as he liked, not a drop of water 
did he get. I soon guessed Downer had 
fixed the pumps — in case of accidents ! 

*' Seeing there were no good doing any- 
thing, while Dick tried to start the pumps with 
a bucket or two of water, I went forrard to 
peep into the fo' castle. There were the 
skipper, sure enough, lying on the settle and 
trying to reach down into the water to find 
out the rights o' things. But I knowed he 
were too late by the way he were swearing, 
and already the water was nigh up to the 
locker tops, and the vessel sinking head 
foremost. 

" As soon as Downer saw the skipper com- 
ing aft, he started shouting, 'For God's 
sake, help us to save the freight. I'm a 
ruined man, if us can't save t' goods.' And 
he had already lugged up a couple of boxes 
which he left full, as if every old case were 
full too — and some of 'em did have a nice lot 
o' rocks in. 

" The skipper, he said nothing, but he put 
the helm hard up and headed in for t' bight. 
' Skipper,' says Downer, ' seeing it'll all be 



192 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

lost, if you'll put her head up in the wind and 
let me save a few things, I'll give you half 
when we get on shore.' But the skipper 
didn't answer one way or t' other, but just 
held her right on for the headland. It did 
seem a terrible long time, but t' Silver Ki7ig 
just wouldn't sink. A plucky ol' craft she'd 
been, and it seemed as if she just wasn't goin' 
to be killed. And I believe now she' d 'a' held 
on and got in to the beach and told her own 
tale if it hadn't been for that same ol' cross 
swell near t' land. For us could see t' skipper 
meant holding on to her till her sank, and 
no one dare even look up at t' boat without 
his leave. 

" That were the worst time I ever saw — 
them hours doing nothing. Downer were 
praying. The dawn were breaking fast, 
and I could see his lips a-moving to his- 
self. For he daren't pray the kind o' 
prayer he were praying out loud for fear t' 
skipper'd hear un. And he were far too 
scairt anyhow, to move any farther than he had 
to from the boat. Anyhow, it got answered 
again somehow all right, for the very first 
roll that took the Silver King sent her lurch- 
ing right over to starboard, and she never 
recovered herself one bit. Slowly and 
steadily she keeled over. There wasn't e'er 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 193 

a kick in her, and it were plain enough that 
it were her death struggle. 

" * her for a crinker ! ' shouted t' 

skipper. * If her hadn't such a belly full I'd 
ha' saved her even now,' and he flung t' 
tiller from him as if it had been a serpent. 

" It was too late, however. Her big main- 
sail were under water, and there were no 
chance now even to get below to save any- 
thing. Lucky for him, t' skipper had sent 
Dick to get his kit bag for him in t' boat be- 
fore and lucky for us all he saw Downer 
sneaking into t' boat. He yelled to Dick, 
just in t' nick o* time to follow him. For I 
really believe he'd a cut t' painter and let her 
go fear she'll be dragged down with the 
schooner and he be damned forever and 
ever as he knew he ought to be. It's likely 
enough, too, he never would have got back 
to we, if he had once cut her adrift. But 
thank God he didn't, or I'd 'a' been in hell now 
too, having ne'er a chance for repentance." 

At this point Rube suddenly stopped and 
there was a dead silence in the room — 
broken only by the scratch of my pen as I 
continued to take down his story. The 
thought of the awful peril he had run seemed 
to have robbed him temporarily of his power 
of speech. He sat for a minute or two with 



194 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

his head buried in his hands. Then ap- 
parently without even noticing the pause, he 
went on again. 

" Well, t' skipper just wouldn't let t' boat 
leave the ol' Silver King. ' Stand by,' was 
his orders, and stand by us had to. 

" There seemed no good any longer stand- 
ing by t' ol' schooner. It was only foolish- 
ness, though I were no longer afraid, know- 
ing us could make t' land in t' boat any time 
we liked. But it did seem nonsense to be 
holding on if us were only just going to 
watch her go down. All of a sudden I 
guessed it. The port rail were going up and 
up and up, and t' starboard were already 
under water. Already we were almost 
climbing up her side, and I knowed if she 
didn't go down in a minute or two, the place 
where she'd been hit 'ud be out o' water. T' 
skipper knowed it too, I reckon, and all the 
time he were just enjoying seeing the fright 
Downer were in anyhow, and keeping it up 
as long as he could, while he were grinning 
to hisself that he'd find out yet what had 
done the damage to any craft in his care. I 
knowed it, for I could fair see him a-swearing 
under his big beard. 

" * Let go the boat, Rube,' the skipper called 
at last. I thought then even he were forced 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 195 

to leave her, for any moment she might dive 
down with all them rocks in her, and then 
she'd surely suck us all down with her. But 
no such t'ing. 

" ' All hands in the boat,' he says. ' You and 
Rube take the oars and stand by till I calls 
you.' Now he was actually sitting on the 
side of the vessel, by the fore channel plates, 
holding on to the lanyards. The swell was 
a-lapping up over her and over him every 
now and again, but he seemed to take no 
notice that he was getting wet. Dick leant 
forrard and whispered to me, * The ol' man's 
got a devil, I reckon, or he wouldn't be fool- 
ing any longer round this ol' bunch o' boards. 
And what's more the devil' 11 get him sure 
enough if he stays many minutes longer.' 
But all of a sudden again the truth of it came 
to my mind. The skipper had guessed it long 
ago : the ol' schooner couldn't sink for the air 
bottled up in her, and so long as it didn't 
come on to blow, she'd float about forever like 
a murdered corpse on the water. And what's 
more, her 'ud show every one where she'd 
been killed. 

" It was dawn now, and bitter cold and 
shivery, when suddenly Downer called out, 
* There's a schooner coming out of the bight. 
Seems to me she's a-coming right for us.' 



196 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

The skipper just looked round for a second. 
' Maybe she is,' he said, and then he glued 
his eyes again on the schooner's forefoot 
which every now and then came nearly out 
of water on the swell. Not a catspaw of 
air now, only the swell of the sea. And it 
was so silent, I thought every now and again 
I could catch the click of the oars of the boat 
that we guessed was towing the schooner 
away off from under the heads of the cliffs, 
just as we did in the night. 

" Once more the sweat nearly came out on 
me, for I thought that schooner 'ud surely be 
out to us and find out all about it. Downer 
were sitting in the stern. He looked the 
colour o' mud now, and he were praying hard 
to hisself again, and I know for what. It 
did me good to see him taking it so ill, for 
though I knowed I was as bad myself I just 
hated him, and hated him for driving me into 
it. And I knowed, too, even if us wasn't 
found out and was drowned, the devil would 
only be getting what was due to he. 

" All this time the schooner were getting 
nearer. Us could plainly make her out now, 
heading right for us. At last Downer couldn't 
stand it no longer. ' For God's sake, skip- 
per,' he kind o' prayed, ' let's be going.' 
There were no spunk left in him, and his 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 197 

voice sounded more like a dog's whine, 
though it were much Hke his reg'lar prayer- 
meeting voice. 

" Old Abe were standing up high on t' 
schooner's side, and, looking round right into 
Downer's face — 'What's t' hurry?' he an- 
swered. ' She's been a good ship all her life 
long. She's served me well in many a tight 
corner, and I ain't a-goin' now to heave off 
and let her die alone. I'm a-going to stand 
by and see her through the last fight. Guess 
I shan't just want to go out alone myself when 
I gets my anchors up for the last time. No, 
no, there's no hurry. Mister Downer. You 
and me '11 get safely back to land, don't you 
have no fear of that^ and he looked at Downer 
as if he meant a good bit more'n that. 

" The light were only duckish yet, and it 
made old Abe loom up right large, stand- 
ing straight up there on the schooner's 
bilge. It seemed almost as if he was t' 
preacher at t' meeting speaking, and us sit- 
ting there in t' pews a-listening. No one 
said nothing. 'Deed it was for all the world 
like a prayer-meeting when the skipper 
hisself began to hum a line o' one o' the 
hymns us sings about — * I hopes to meet my 
Pilot face to face, when I puts out to sea.' I 
thought Downer were going out of his mind 



198 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

now. He fair forgot hisself altogether like he 
done once at our revival, only this time he 
were shouting to t' skipper instead of to t' 
Lord. He started calling out, ' Why doesn't 
she sink ? For God's sake, Abe, why doesn't 
she sink? Let's get away from her. I knows 
I shall die if I stays here any longer. I can't 
stand it. I can't stand it. You shall have 
all I owns if you'll only come.' 

" * Can't you think why she won't sink, 
Mister Downer ? ' Abe went on that slowly 
you'd think he were just beginning a sermon. 
* Can't you guess why she won't sink ? ' 
Downer didn't answer, so the skipper did it 
for him. * No, it ain't just cause the devil is 
in her,* he said, ' though I'm not saying 
there's not been enough devils in her to float 
her on a sea o' fire — on times,' he added. 
' No, it's because she's got air in her bilge 
what can't get out. Thaf s what's making 
her forefoot stick up that way out of water. 
I thought myself maybe it was just old Nick 
a-playin' with her at first, and I wouldn't 
wonder now if he was sorry to have such a 
trophy lost sight on — fear he might need it one 
o' these days just for a witness against people.' 

" Downer's jaw dropped like at a wake 
when the cloth comes of^ t' corpse's head, and 
he pulled hisself together once more. 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 199 

'"We'll have to let it out, Abe. We'll 
have to let it out. She'll be a danger to the 
other schooners if us leaves her floating here.' 

" ' Yes, maybe she will,' he said, but that 
slowly that I knowed well enough what he 
meant, that if any of 'em saw how easy it was 
to lose a schooner they'd likely do it them- 
selves. Just then Downer suddenly looked 
up at the heads again, and there us could see 
a catspaw o' wind off the land and the sails 
of the strange schooner just bellying out and 
airing her aloft slowly straight towards us. 
Downer took it all in at a glance. She'd be 
alongside us in a few minutes if the breeze 
held on. 

" * Let's be through with it at once, Abe. 
It needn't take Rube two seconds to make a 
hole in the bilge. Here's the axe. And for 
God's sake, let's be quick, or I'll be dead o' 
cold, I knows I will.* 

" But the skipper was not through with his 
sermon, and went on just as if he hadn't heard 
him. 

" * Yes, she'd be a danger to some on 'em, 
sure enough. Lead us not into temptation, 
t' or Book says. So I reckon us won't leave 
no stumbling-block in t' way o' the least on 
'em.' 

" I dunno whether Downer seed what he 



200 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

were driving at, but to help him out the 
skipper added, ' Money be a shocking deceit- 
ful thing and there's no knowing what us 
poor creatures won't do to get it.' And then 
at last, seeing it was that cold and wet, he 
come slowly down and got into t' boat. For 
t' holes was now well out of water and t' 
white splinters was sticking out on t* outside.* 
" T' strange schooner were drawing nearer 
quite quickly now, and Downer couldn't stand 
it no longer. So grabbing the axe hisself, he 
ran forrard in the boat and climbed out on 
the ol' schooner's side, the devil o' fear sit- 
ting on his back. No one else said anything. 
Us just stayed as us was, while he started 
chopping at the planking, wild like. He 
didn't seem to mind what he hit so long as 
he got through, and he'd hardly begun be- 
fore he hit an iron bolt and nearly spoilt his 
axe blade. My, he looked queer up there 
hacking and hacking like a wild man and as 
if his life depended on it. What's more, t' air 
in her made her something like a sounding 
box, and the noise must surely have reached 
the hilltops, much more the schooner coming 
towards us. Bang, bang, bang, went the 
axe. Meanwhile the skipper got into the 
boat and stood up in the stern with the steer- 
ing oar in his hand, just waiting. 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 201 

" * keep her close, boys,' he said ; * maybe 
she'll go down sudden when the fool gets 
through her planking.' 

"I guessed then he didn't know I'd had 
any hand in it, and I was sure later, when 
just as there were a gurgle kind o' explosion 
o' air, and Downer made a rush for the boat, 
I heard him say half to hisself, * Maybe it's as 
well to let it go at that — " Vengeance is mine, 
I will repay." ' For the skipper were as good 
at t' Bible as he were at swearin'. 

" And so the ol' ship went down and us 
rowed in for the heads. The schooner passed 
us by without hardly noticing us, except one 
hand on the deck at the wheel waved his 
hand to we. Maybe they took us for a boat 
out fishing — maybe them didn't, 

" That's all, doctor, 'cos soon as us got into 
harbour. Downer just told his story and no- 
body else said nothing. No, I dunno if he 
ever got his insurance. Most likely he did. 
The skipper could only have got hisself into 
trouble by saying anything, for he had noth- 
ing to show. He knowed nothing more than 
that he'd seen holes in her bow with the 
splinters on the outside, and the jury wouldn't 
care about that. It 'ud never have put 
Downer in jail, and so he let it go at that. 
"No, I never got one cent or one cake o' 



202 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

bread. Downer cursed me for a fool as soon 
as I put foot on shore. He swore he'd never 
give me a cent, and if I said a word about it, 
it would be me what they'd send to jail for 
boring the holes. I couldn't have swallowed 
a bite of it anyhow, and it would have 
poisoned my family, I thought. So I just let 
it go at that. I had come to myself partly 
with the morning light, but I daren't go and 
tell any one, and it has been worse than be- 
ing dead ever since. I knowed I ought to be 
in jail, and yet I was afraid it would kill my 
wife and starve the children if I told. At last 
I couldn't keep it up no longer. It strangled 
me by nights, and I couldn't work anyhow 
by day. So I just telled Jake here. And a 
bit later he got me to go to prayers with him 
one morning. That were the end of it, doc- 
tor. I couldn't keep it in no longer, and 
that's all there is to it. It were like a great, 
awful pack on my back everywhere I went — 
I were never a minute free from it. I reckon 
every one must know, and I must take t' 
punishment to get peace in my soul again. 
So I come to tell you, and now you knows it 
all." 

There was a pause for a moment ; and then 
I said : 

** You've told me a lot of details, Rube. 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 203 

Do you remember it so well that you want 
to swear to it all?" 

" I remembers every bit as if it was burnt 
into me," he answered. ** Is that how I told 
it you, Jake ? " 

"Nigh as I can remember it's word for 
word, Rube." 

** You understand I must send this on to 
St. John's, once you sign it, and that means 
you will be arrested and sent to prison, 
possibly next spring ? " 

"Yes, I understands it, and I'll be 
glad of it, too. I be a happy man once 
more." 

I read over to him the strange tale he had 
told me, and then both he and Jake signed 
it, after taking an oath that the statement 
was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
the truth. And there for the time the matter 
ended. 

Rube went back to his work an absolutely 
new man. The crew of the new vessel didn't 
know what to make of it. Early and late he 
kept them at it, and she grew so fast that all 
doubts as to her being ready for spring were 
soon things of the past. The next time I 
went down to Rube's little cottage, his good 
wife told me he almost beat the baby sleep- 
ing now, and if it weren't that she hauled him 



204 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

out of bed in the morning to go to work she 
reckoned he'd sleep the clock round. 

But meantime the big envelope with the 
" story " in it was winging its way around 
our barren coast from dog train to dog train, 
and ever getting nearer the dread courts of 
the judges whose fiat would come down to 
us on the first mail steamer after the sea 
opened up, and would be pregnant with such 
big issues for poor Rube and his family. 
Knowing as I did their desire in St. John's to 
temper justice with mercy, I had ventured 
to attach an appendix of my own, humbly 
praying that the voluntary confession, the 
man's otherwise clean record and sterling 
character, the dire results to his innocent 
family if he were deported before the fishing 
season, might all be taken into account and 
the warrant for his arrest delayed until the 
fall at least. 

The arrival of the first mail steamer is 
always a matter of importance. One may 
almost say the whole settlement runs riot 
with excitement. But it certainly was if 
possible heightened this spring to me when 
from among my letters there fell out a long, 
solemn-looking, blue envelope, stamped with 
the royal crest and official insignia of the 
Supreme Court of Justice. With almost 



RUBE MARVIN'S CONFESSION 205 

trembling fingers I tore it open, and then to 
my joy I found that my petition was granted, 
and Rube was not to be sent up with the 
witnesses for the trial of Mr. Downer on the 
charge of barratry, till the following October. 
This would give him a chance to get the 
season's fishing for his family. 

The case came on in due time. Downer 
was sent to prison for two years. Rube for 
one. But when I was passing through the 
next spring on my way north, just as the 
fishing began once more, a petition we pre- 
sented to His Excellency the Governor for 
the King's pardon for Rube was successful. 
I had the infinite joy of carrying the news to 
him in the penitentiary myself. I found him 
in excellent spirits and perfect health, and as 
I shipped him as a hand on my steamer the 
moment he stepped out of prison, and as I 
walked down the street with him myself to 
the boat, he felt the coming out into the 
world again less than, alas, many a poor 
fellow does. He has been one of my best 
friends and helpers from that day to this, and 
to-day I know of no man living on our long 
coast whom I love more, whether he be in 
broadcloth or fustian, than my ever happy 
and optimistic colleague, Reuben Marvin. 



XIII 
" The Spars of the Rose of Torridge " 

MALCOLM ENGLISH was a Scotch- 
man in spite of his name — at least 
he had potentially come over from 
that country in the loins of his grandfather, 
who seventy years back had served the great 
Hudson Bay Fur Trading Company as a 
cooper for the salmon and seal oil. It must 
be remembered, however, that the one or two 
carefully preserved letters which the good 
man had received after first settling on the 
coast bore the superscription of Malcolm 
Macintosh. But when you are the northern- 
most white man and live entirely among 
Esquimos, what reason is there to be fighting 
for a pesky soubriquet just because it chances 
to label one's grandfather, especially when it 
happens to be as difficult to spell as it is im- 
possible to pronounce. The ciphering on the 
old letters meant nothing anyhow to the 
present Malcolm, for he had " no learning." 
He was a modest, retiring fellow, and to 
all his world he was just plain " Malcolm 
English." 
When I first met him he had just come out 
206 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 207 

of one of the long northern Labrador fjords, 
at the bottom of which he Uved. He was on 
his way to barter some fur for food suppHes 
with the schooner-men of a small fleet of 
southern fishing vessels. 

Our hospital steamer had just dropped her 
anchor in the midst of these craft and the 
watch on deck had at once called my atten- 
tion to a queer looking boat which was ap- 
proaching them. She was low and fiat, 
evidently built for the bay only. But it was 
the speed with which she was advancing that 
first gained our attention. Our curiosity was 
greatly increased when our glasses revealed 
a girl standing up steering, while two more 
were each stoutly pulling a pair of sculls in 
perfect time with a tall man's rowing stroke. 
Naturally we were at once eager to know more 
about them. 

An invitation issued by the mate, though 
conveyed in his usual unconventional manner 
through a megaphone from the quarter-deck, 
was successful in bringing the strangers along- 
side and aboard, where a few minutes' ex- 
planation as to who we were soon served to 
put them entirely at their ease. The natural 
grace of these tall, splendidly set up young 
women was something to remember. Though 
their home-made, simple dress was an odd 



2o8 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

contrast to ours, they were just as much at 
home among us strangers as if they had 
studied deportment in a New York finishing 
school. Moreover the unaffected gentlemanli- 
ness of their big clean-cut father gave him an 
atmosphere of superiority with which no 
veneer of civilization can compare. 

He had only brought in his " nonny bag " 
a couple of red foxes and an otter skin to 
barter. They were all he had been able to 
" hold " until the fishermen who had be- 
friended him before could get down north 
through the ice, though he well knew they 
would trade with him out of their supplies, 
flour, molasses and pork, at less than half the 
cost he could get those necessities of life from 
any of the trading posts. As Malcolm's home 
proved to be " 'way back " up the bay, and as 
it was late before his trading was satisfacto- 
rily accompHshed, we persuaded "all hands" 
to stay for the evening and tell us yarns of 
their isolated life " down north." The even- 
ing ended with some singing and the simplest 
of simple services. The complete absence of 
any attempt to hide their delight became to 
us all the more enjoyable when we under- 
stood that not one of our new friends could 
either read or write. They were familiar, 
however, with most of the hymns and the 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 209 

transparent satisfaction which they found just 
in the singing of them was a real lesson for 
us in the philosophy of the sources of happi- 
ness. 

It was not a great effort, at their earnest 
request, to run up the bay in the morning and 
visit the log cottage, which served them for a 
salmon fishing station in summer, for trap- 
ping in winter, and for sealing in spring. 
Their mother had " gone before " and there 
were no boys, so the girls took naturally to 
their share of all these occupations. I very 
much doubt if anywhere there could be found 
a more simple, wholesome and charming 
family. Nor was this due entirely to the set- 
ting of their life, for men can be slaves to 
self-indulgence in squalid surroundings as 
well as in luxurious palaces. But the simple 
piety of this little home made us literally take 
our hats off. 

After the inevitable cup of tea and a visit 
around the house, we went up to the trout 
nets, set in the fjord from points of van- 
tage. Each fleet of nets was watched 
over in friendly rivalry by one of the girls. 
Though one fleet was set from the face of a 
sheer overhanging cliff, and could only be 
approached by boat, we managed in the 
wake of one of the girls to scramble up above 



2IO DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

it, and there lying out on our faces we could 
see fathoms down over the edge into the 
clear water below. Even as we watched, 
several large sea trout came swimming la- 
zily along, and disdaining to swim under or 
jump over the barrier, they continued to butt 
straight into the nets, till having succeeded 
in getting their heads into the meshes as far 
as their gills, they were unable to get out, and 
so lay there kicking and panting until their 
captors should come after them. Our friend, 
owing to his Scotch stock, had some knowl- 
edge of agriculture, and by the side of his 
house was a small garden in which he had 
some nice heads of lettuce in addition to a 
few straggling cabbage and turnip plants. 
Moreover we could not help noticing, even 
in our short walk, how few things escaped the 
girls' observant eyes. They knew, though by 
names of their own coining, the birds, the 
beasts, the flowers. The very marshes held 
friends for them in their abundant lichens and 
mosses ; while the native blueberry, red cran- 
berry, yellow cloudberry, black teaberry and 
white maidenhair berry formed an orchard pre- 
pared for them by nature which appeared to 
them none the less generous because it offered 
none of the more luscious southern fruits of 
which they knew nothing. The simple jams 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 211 

served at tea were made from the arctic cran- 
berry, picked in May, after it had been sweet- 
ened by a long winter under the snow. This 
with some yellow " bake-apple " or " cloud- 
berry" jelly, made from the new crop which 
had just been gathered, left our kindly hosts 
no cause to apologize for the lack of any- 
thing. 

The same attractive simplicity character- 
ized everything about them. They possessed 
no spring hats, no rings, no earrings, no rich 
brocades, no frills of any kind — and yet there 
seemed nothing lacking. Their hair, the 
sole covering of their heads that they either 
wore or needed, could not have been im- 
proved by either puffs or curls culled from 
other people. There was in everything an 
entire absence of that coarseness which the 
environment of "mean streets" is so apt to 
engender. Indeed they seemed in every 
respect like a breeze fresh from unspoiled 
nature, a genuine product of their simple life. 

The pride with which we were shown the 
dogs' house, the store, the new splitting stage 
covered with boards, sawn by the girls them- 
selves with their large pit-saw, the sledges, 
and indeed all the winter outfit, left us im- 
pressed with the fact that contentment is, 
after all, a greater asset than riches, and we 



212 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

felt almost like envying our new-found friends 
their quiet life in the bay. They would not 
let us leave them at night till we had 
had together again a word from " the old 
book," and also sung several of the hymns 
with the tunes of which they were fa- 
miliar. 

We had noticed in the cottage a lamen- 
table absence of pictures, due to the complete 
isolation. They had picture frames hung up, 
made out of birch and ornamented by elab- 
orate whittling. Also some made of smoked 
deerskin strips ornamented with coloured 
beads, but all pathetically empty. The de- 
light afforded by the gift of some old illus- 
trated papers with a few of the Christmas 
coloured inserts was in itself a reward for 
our journey. These simple gifts were such 
an obvious addition to the brightness of the 
rooms that the ruling passion, so manifest in 
our northern folk, namely their beautiful 
home love, simply dissipated any remaining 
reserve. " You isn't going to give us them, is 
you, doctor ? " " Not really, is you, though? " 
was a chorus rather than a monologue. It 
made us almost afraid even to suggest that 
they might like to trade for a few simple 
household devices of civilization that we 
wished they could have. 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 213 

At last it was time to leave, and as we 
steamed out of the bay we realized that there 
are sermons in other things besides pulpits 
and stones. 

A couple of years passed away and our hos- 
pital steamer was again lying at anchor off the 
northern hospital. The season was late and 
much floe ice was still around, while the 
snow had by no means gone from the land. 
For the sake of the work of this station, 
which is with the fishing schooners that come 
down for the cod fishery, the hospital is 
placed among a group of islands lying well 
out in the Atlantic. Here, owing to the 
extreme coldness of the polar current, the 
land offers nothing but barren rocks, with the 
result that early in the season before the 
return of the summer fishermen has wakened 
it up into something like activity, the environ- 
ment is about as depressing as one can easily 
imagine. 

The sound of some one shooting from the 
shore roused me one morning from my rev- 
eries as I sat in the chart room. As I arose 
to go out, the deck hand announced that a 
man on the rocks was beckoning, and asked 
my permission to take away the jolly-boat and 
bring him aboard. " Certainly, Abe, go off 



214 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

at once," for indeed I was glad enough to 
find another human being moving around. 
Soon a tall, familiar, yet unfamiliar, figure 
climbed over the rail, and after looking at me 
a moment with a twinkle in his eye, said, " I 
see you's forgotten me, doctor ; it's Malcolm 
English, whom you came over to see two 
years ago in Tikkertane Bay." 

'Shake hands," I replied. "I remember 
you now as if it were yesterday. Whatever 
are you doing up here ? What induced you 
to leave home, and where are your girls ? " 

" It's a long story," he answered, somewhat 
wearily, " and that's just what I come over 
here to tell you, doctor." 

" Come right in, Malcolm ; you found me 
idle and I will be just delighted if I can be of 
any service to you." 

" No thanks, I don't smoke," he said as I 
pushed him the tobacco jar. " I had to give 
it up for want of tobacco, and I can't afford 
to learn to want it now. Well, first of all, 
doctor, I t'ink you knows that there were no 
chance to get ahead down where we lived in 
Tikkertane Bay. You couldn't get any cash 
for anything ever, and so us never could 
put anything by. There is only me to fend 
for the three maids, and so I got to t'inking 
I would like to come where perhaps we might 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 215 

get some money. T'ings was terribly dear 
down there too, and it didn't matter how 
much us bought we was always just a bit in 
debt to the store. You knows Captain Abe 
Niccols of the Quickstep? Well, one day 
he said I might get a chance with Mr. Flash- 
man at Wild Cove, who wanted some one to 
mind his rooms in the winter. So he wrote 
him a letter for us, and sure enough he said 
if us would come up to the cove, he would 
give us our living and forty dollars for 
t' winter, so long as we would mend his 
nets, and boats, and gear, and watch his 
place and paint everything up ready for 
the fishery. We could trap in the winter as 
well if we liked, and if we would sign on for 
a year, he would fit us out and take our fish 
next summer as well. So Uncle Abe brought 
us up in t' schooner last fall, and us has been 
working for Mr. Flashman ever since." 

"Well, what's the matter? Do you want 
a passage down again with all the money you 
have made ? " Malcolm noticed at once an 
odd ring in my voice, and looked up sharply 
to see what I meant by it. 

"Money!" he said. "Money! Well, that's 
just the trouble. It's eighteen months now 
and us has worn out all our things and us 
has no money yet. Mr. Flashman has just 



2i6 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

come back yesterday for t' summer, and he 
says again, ' There's no cash coming to you, 
boy, this year. Your winter's diet has swal- 
lowed up all that' He wouldn't listen to 
nothing I could say, and threatened to drive 
me and the girls right out-of-doors if I said 
any more about it. Then there's worse than 
that, doctor. There's men drinking there all 
the while, and it's bad enough to see the 
goings on. For the poor fellows soon gets 
so they doesn't know what they's doing, 
and then they just parts with the fish that 
they ought to be carrying to their women 
folks at home. Then I am terribly feared for 
my girls, doctor. There's been several fisher 
girls round there drunk since t' big schooner 
come down, and I seed one poor creature 
lying out there on the hillside as I crossed 
over to see you. It means no good for them 
poor things, and us wants to go back down 
to our home again." 

" It's far and away the best thing you can 
do, Malcolm. I never yet knew any one get 
rich out of Flashman. I wish you had asked 
me about it before you came up at all. It 
might have saved you this. But, of course, 
you couldn't do that without any mail service. 
How are you going to get back ? " 

"That's the trouble ; us hasn't got nothing 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 217 

left. Captain Abe could call in for us in t' 
schooner if he knowed, but he doesn't call 
in nowhere going down in the spring if he 
can help it, fearing some one might get down 
before him and get his trap berth." 

" You say Flashman won't pay you any- 
thing for the winter ; perhaps there is some 
way to make him. Let's see what you have 
done all winter." 

" Well, t' girls mended t' nets, and t' twine, 
and sails, and cleared up t' rooms, and 
helped me fit out the stages and fix up t' 
boats. Them is almost as handy with an 
axe as with a needle. We got everything 
just ready for Mr. Flashman' s men to go 
right to work the day they come down. 
And yet he says there is nothing coming to 
us." 

" Did you have any visitors in the winter 
who hadn't any food of their own ? " 

" Well, there is always one or two, doctor, 
and maybe there was more than usual this 
winter. But what can you do, doctor ? You 
can't see folk go hungry." 

I had been listening as a magistrate, 
though I didn't think he knew I was a 
magistrate. However, I was certain from the 
nature of the man that he had not come for 
help by physical force. But after all, I had 



2i8 DOWN NORTH 071 The LABRADOR 

the power of a justice of the peace, and even 
if there wasn't any one in Labrador who 
could try civil cases, I might find some loop- 
hole to help out. But this last information 
seemed a mighty weak spot. Neither he nor 
his daughter could figure. With his frank 
nature, and what I]mightcall his "uncivilized" 
sensitiveness for truth in the smallest matters, 
he insisted, " Maybe I used a bit more 
molasses and flour than if I had been alone 
all winter. There was nothing said in the 
agreement about us giving a meal to them as 
might come along, and o' course I doesn't 
want to rob Mr. Flashman." But even he 
felt sure that twenty dollars would pay for 
what he might have had more than his 
allowance, as there were few folk that came 
off to the island, since it wasn't near the 
komatik track. There certainly should be 
twenty dollars coming to them for their 
winter's work. 

" Is there nothing else, Malcolm, that you 
can think of ? " 

" Yes, doctor ; there be a few coals that 
had been left over since the time when there 
was a steam launch. There is no wood out 
on t' island, and us couldn't get through t' 
slob ice to go in t' bay afore us had to be 
painting and fixing t' boats. Mr. Flashman 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 219 

agreed to find us wood, but there wasn't 
enough to last out, and so us had to use a bit 
of coal or perish." 

It was clearly a more difficult matter to 
decide than I had hoped. I knew I had 
heard every word of the truth. I knew the 
family were destitute, if Malcolm would con- 
fess it. I knew there was no other course 
possible than to get them straight back 
home. But how to find the money to renew 
their nets, boats and outfit, to keep them 
from starving when they got there, I couldn't 
see, for there was nothing left after two years. 
If law and equity were synonymous I could 
manage it easily. For then I should have 
taken my crew down and helped my poor 
friends to the full amount promised them out 
of Flashman's store. But even if there were 
a written agreement Malcolm had no copy ; 
and probably as he was illiterate there never 
was one. I had more than once given 
judgment where only verbal agreements had 
been made. Indeed, being a surgeon and 
not a lawyer, and having no knowledge of 
precedents, the deck of the vessel was always 
a court of equity rather than of law. In spite 
of which, hitherto its working has been more 
rapid, less expensive and I think as satis- 
factory, so far as we had found, as that 



220 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

in more ornate and conventional surround- 
ings. 

But Flashman had the right, and undoubt- 
edly would use it, to appeal from any de- 
cision I might make. We had been at issue 
more than once before, and I had neither 
time nor desire for mere recrimination, as 
our aim is to be remedial, and not retributive. 
An appeal meant no possible trial until next 
winter, and then neither Malcolm nor I could 
by any chance be there to proceed with the 
case. It was a hard problem, and I sat chew- 
ing my pencil, while Malcolm, who in spite of 
his statement couldn't resist filling and light- 
ing the new pipe I had pushed over to him, 
smoked in silence. " Isn't there anything else 
you can think of at all? Haven't you any- 
thing left of your own?" 

" Well, doctor, I thought I had ; there's 
them two pitch pine spars ; I reckon them's 
worth a hundred dollars, and I 'lows I ought 
to have something for saving them." 

" Tell me about them." 

" Well, doctor, t' winter before last there 
was a large brigantine from England called 
t' Rose of Torridge that had come out with a 
cargo of salt for Mr. Flashman. She were 
loaded with fish for the market, and was just 
beating out of Wild Cove when she missed 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 221 

stays and struck on Dead-man's Reef at the 
mouth of t' harbour. There be plenty that 
says they could ha' got her off easy enough 
if they had liked. Leastwise she had no right 
to strike at all on a fine morning with a light 
westerly wind blowing. But she were put 
up for sale right away, and Mr. Flashman 
bought her for a wreck. She weren't floated 
for a week, but then they towed her right up 
and anchored her in the ' run ' to leave her 
for the spring. For, of course, Mr. Flashman 
had no crew for her. Somehow a lot of talk 
about her got around, and some said that 
men were coming down from t' government 
to see about how she were lost, and then 
suddenly she got on fire and burnt to the 
water line. 

" Well, doctor, last spring t' ice all broke 
up, and my Maggie saw what was left 
of the wreck driving down alongshore in 
a big pan of ice. There wasn't nothing 
worth saving but the spars. But it seemed 
a shame to let them go, and them pitch pine, 
without a try to get 'em. So us all four set 
out to try and cut them out of t' ice, and get 
them fast to a point of rock as they went by. 
It took us all day to get them loose from the 
ice and we got wet and cold enough. But 
at last we got a line to the cliff, above where 



222 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

the ice was carrying them along, and just as 
the floe swept by the point us rolled them off 
into the water and they drove into t' back- 
water behind it. Us had a big enough job 
to get back to land ourselves, and we didn't 
get t' spars safe for a few days. But at last 
t' wind stopped, and there was a lane of 
water along the ballicater ice, so us could 
tow 'em around and haul 'em up to safety." 

Knowing the Labrador winter ice as I do, 
and having lost my own steamer exactly the 
same way, I just jumped up and shook 
hands with him. 

" Well done ; good for you and the girls, 
Malcolm. That was worth while if you never 
get a cent for it." Think of it, a solitary 
man and three girls out with axes and bars, 
prizing out that old vessel's spars from the 
floe as it drove by their island, and saving 
them at the foot of a sheer cliff, and then 
getting safely ashore again ! 

" Splendid. What did Mr. Flashman say ? '» 
I added, suddenly recollecting what led up to 
the story. 

" Mr. Flashman said the spars was all his, 
doctor. He said he had paid for my time, 
and all I got was hisn." 

" I guess I'll come over and see Mr. Flash- 
man myself," I said, " though he did say he 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 223 

would throw me into the sea if I landed 
again on his wharf. Come along ; there is 
no time to waste." 

It was only a couple of miles by sea, and 
two pairs of sculls soon made that look 
small. As we neared the point, I landed 
Malcolm and rowed on alone, not wishing to 
complicate matters unnecessarily for him. 
I had learned from Malcolm where the spars 
lay, and went to estimate their value before 
going up to the house. But evidently I had 
been recognized, for while I was fastening 
the boat an ugly crowd of men had come 
down and were standing by the spars, as if 
it were possible for me to carry them off 
single handed like Samson did the gates of 
Gaza. 

However, when I gave them *' good-morn- 
ing " they returned my greeting, and I knew 
then I had guessed right. They had little love 
for their task for Flashman, for they did not 
offer to interfere with my measuring and esti- 
mating the value of the masts, which I found 
had been chopped off at the gammon as the 
only way to get them free from the sub- 
merged hull. 

This being done, I proceeded towards the 
house, and on the narrow path by the cliff 
edge met Flashman, evidently watching me. 



224 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

His men, who had posed all the while 
as chance onlookers, remained by the spars. 

" Good-morning, Mr. Flashman." 

"Good-morning; can I do anything for 
you ? " he answered. 

" Yes, you can ; you can pay me one- third 
the value of those pitch pine spars, or I shall 
have to seize them. . . ." 

There is no need to record the conversa- 
tion that followed. It wouldn't be helpful, 
and foolish language isn't generally a Labra- 
dor failing. Suffice it to say, we soon under- 
stood each other. 

" The sun is already long past midday, Mr. 
Flashman, and the matter will have to be 
settled elsewhere anyhow. So I will bid you 
good-bye for the present." And I turned to 
go down the edge of the cliff to where I had 
left my boat. 

As I did so, I caught sight of the well-knit 
figure of Malcolm, standing in the shelter of 
the rocks about half-way between me and 
the water, while sitting on the bank by him, 
but well out of sight from above, were his 
three bonnie girls. Exactly like Flashman's 
men, they were playing at being there by 
chance. 

I could not help smiling, for I knew the real 
reason, and I wondered whether Flashman 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 225 

had also seen them, and had suspected that I 
had arranged for this Amazonian body-guard 
to be in reserve. The strain of the interview 
had been somewhat intense, and the possi- 
bility that he had pictured them as Valkyries 
swooping down upon him from their native 
heights was so irresistibly ludicrous that I 
fairly burst out laughing. 

The sound reached Flashman. He was 
standing, evidently in doubt, just where I 
had left him. Suddenly he called loudly 
down to me that he wanted to say something 
to me. To my utter surprise it was, " You've 
a long way to go, doctor. I suppose you 
wouldn't care for dinner before you start ? " 
With the extraordinary versatility that char- 
acterized the man, he had altered in an 
instant from the sordid, heartless money- 
grabber, to the chivalrous mediaeval host, 
who took pleasure in feeding his enemy. He 
was a veritable " Jekyl and Hyde," where the 
wizard's potion was a sense of humour. He 
had obviously spied my volunteer body- 
guard. 

" Will I take dinner in your house ? Cer- 
tainly I will. I shall trust you not to poison 
me," — and we solemnly marched ofl together 
up the hill. 

As half an hour later I sat at the table, with 



226 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

Flashman carving, the sense of the ridiculous 
was once again too much for me, and I broke 
out laughing incontinently. What made it 
worse was the expression on his face, which 
betrayed that he was just dying to know the 
cause of my merriment. Nor, though we 
had called a truce during the hour of refresh- 
ment for the sake of Labrador hospitality, 
could I refrain from describing to him how I 
felt certain I should one day live to pick his 
bones instead of those of the fat sea birds on 
which he was regaling me. 

We parted as we met, without shaking 
hands. Both of us meant war. I saw no 
way but the gospel of the maily fist for Flash- 
man. And he — well, he had no fear of a 



missionary. 

When I went out, the faithful Malcolm was 
still " standing by," though, thinking it safe 
to do so, he had sent the Amazons to get 
their dinner. I walked up to his cottage with 
him and told him how matters stood, and 
that he was to come over and see me in the 
evening. Then we could settle what to do 
next. " Bring your girls along with you, 
Malcolm, and we can give you all one good 
time anyhow aboard the ship, if you never 
have another." 

That evening, as once more Malcolm sat 



" 772^ SPARS of The ROSE'' 227 

opposite me, smoking the pipe I had given 
him, my inspiration came. 

" I'll tell you what I'll do, Malcolm. I want 
some pitch pine badly to panel the hospital 
hallway and staircase. I'll buy your share of 
the spars, and as we can't do anything else 
we'll just pray that the good Lord may send 
Skipper Abe into Wild Cove as he goes 
north." 

It took some persuading to make my friend 
agree to the first part of the bargain, and I 
am certain it was only an unlimited confi- 
dence in my powers to have my way, that I 
at last reconciled him to selling what he knew 
he could not hand over in person at once 
Seeing my advantage, I forced the matter to 
an issue directly, and we drew up a written 
deed of sale signed with the humble X of each 
of the vendors, none of whom could sign 
otherwise. 

Meanwhile, we had secretly packed a small 
box with some useful things from our cloth- 
ing department, and secreted it in their boat, 
and when finally we shouted "good-night" 
from the rail to our friends, they at least had 
enough warm garments to get home with, if 
only Captain Abe came in. There was no 
possible way to insure this otherwise, so we 
just asked the good Lord before we turned in 



228 DOWN NORTH on The LABRADOR 

for the night to give Captain Abe Niccols, of 
the Quicksteps a rousing head wind when he 
should reach down to latitude 56° 25' north. 

We had to leave during the night, and it 
was nearly three weeks before I ran in to 
Tikkertane Harbour. By this time my crew 
knew the story of poor Malcolm only too 
well, and they were all on deck as we stood 
in towards our anchorage, for they were just 
crazy to hear if the schooner Quickstep had 
brought down Malcolm English or not. 

We had not long to wait. Even as our 
anchor chain rattled out through the hawse 
pipe we saw a quaint but familiar flag being 
rapidly hoisted on a tall mast among the 
bunch of schooners in the bay. 

" She's there all right, doctor ! " my mate 
called out somewhat needlessly, with his 
characteristic enthusiasm. For which, how- 
ever, we make concessions on these occasions, 
seeing he is a family man himself. 

" Yes, the Quickstep is there all right, Bill. 
And what's more, you may be sure she's got 
'em, or they wouldn't think of hoisting that 
flag in such a hurry. Get out the jolly-boat 
and go and see." 

But there was no need for that. In less 
than no time a large fishing boat was sweep- 
ing along straight for our steamer, and the 



" The SPARS of The ROSE'' 229 

style of oarsmanship spoke as clearly to us 
all as ever did a Galilean accent to a Jew of 
old. There was a man steering and three 
girls each pulling double sculls. 

No, I never got those spars. The victory 
cannot always be on one side. But worse 
even than to lose them, Flashman had the 
laugh on me. For I was foolish enough to 
steam over to try and take them " willy-nilly," 
only to find that they were already miles 
away, sailing the sea as spars in one of 
Flashman's own schooners. They were good 
spars, and I hope they brought no trouble to 
the good fellows whose safety depended on 
them. 

It was some years before I got even with 
Flashman. But his reckoning did come later, 
though in another manner. There was to be, 
however, one more chapter to this story. 

Some years later a much battered package, 
evidently hailing from the far north, made its 
appearance on my chart room table. To my 
dismay, when I opened it there fell out in 
postage stamps the price I had paid for the 
two pitch pine spars of the good ship Rose of 
Torridge. It was Malcolm English's last 
word. 



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